National youth program

INTRODUCTION
Youth in contemporary Croatian society
Social and political circumstances, in which the young generation of today in Croatia is 
developing, are not significantly different from the ones at the beginning of this decade, 
when the basic guidelines of the national youth policy were conceived and adopted for the 
first time. Croatia is still a country facing a range of difficulties arising from the transition 
of political and economic system, which bring various and numerous risks, especially for 
young population. Simultaneously, Croatia is a transitional country in which the process of 
democratic consolidation and intensive preparations for the accession to European Union 
are taking place, which generally increases life opportunities and possibilities for young 
persons.
Concerning youth, one should take into account that they are, as a separate social group, 
socially heterogeneous in accordance with the stratification of society of which they are 
an integral part. On the other hand, young persons share some common characteristics, 
among which is the basic belonging to a certain age group. This is the population from 
15 to 30 years of age, which means that within the group of young people exist several 
age cohorts, which differ by the degree of maturity, and even formal rights recognized by 
the society. Here it is important to know that the stated age designation is not generally 
accepted, especially in official statistics, in which the population up to 25 years of age is 
most commonly perceived as the group of young people. However, findings of numerous 
researches in the world and in Croatia have shown that it is much more fruitful to perceive 
as young people the population up to 30 (and in some cases even up to 35) years of age, 
especially when various forms of social intervention aimed at improving the overall social 
position of young people are being considered.
Young people as a social group share actual and ascribed social characteristics that 
determine their social role, the consequence of which is the insufficient integration of 
youth into the overall social life and their more unfavourable social status in comparison 
with the older population. Young people are in a specific transitional period in which the 
disproportion of psychophysical and social maturity is characteristic: they are no longer 
protected as children, and they still do not have all the possibilities and opportunities 
available to adults. Such situation makes them one of the most vulnerable segments of 
the population, which requires a special relation of the society towards their interests, 
problems, needs and life perspectives.
Research insights in the world and in Croatia until today have shown that the transition of 
young people into the so-called world of adults is becoming more complex and longer-
lasting. Institutionalized education lasts longer, contemporary technological changes ask 
for more qualified and flexible workforce, and economic developments cyclically cause an 
increase in unemployment, which mainly affects youth. The abovementioned processes 
result also in a slower entrance into the so-called world of work, i.e. slower socioeconomic 
independence, which forces young people to stay in dependent position. Difficult inclusion 

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into the professional work contributes to the prolongation of establishing of their own 
families, and therefore in Croatia, as in the majority of European countries, young people 
enter their first marriage at later and later age, and consequently, they get children later. 
Although all rights are granted to them upon reaching the age of majority, at the same 
time political (self)passivization and suppression of young people from decision-making 
positions take place, so their interests in the political arena are more or less successfully 
mediated by adults. Later and later overtaking of permanent social roles and exclusion 
or insufficient inclusion of youth in economic, political and social processes have as their 
consequence the insufficient social integration of the young generation. This means that 
young people’s potentials, as the most vital, most flexible and potentially most innovative 
and most creative segment of contemporary society, remain insufficiently used. Here 
one has to bear in mind that during the last half century, marked with the processes of 
modernization, in Croatia, the portion of young people aged 15 to 30 decreased from 
27.7% (in 1953) to 20.6% (in 2001). Similar demographic changes also took place in the 
majority of European countries, and the trend of aging of population makes young people 
an additionally more precious social resource.
Young people react to social marginalization in various ways – from unproblematic 
and occasionally resigned adaptation to given society, over distancing from the society 
‘‘ruled’’ by the older generation, and a kind of shutting themselves in separate subcultural 
patterns of living, to open rebellion or development of delinquent behaviour patterns. 
Previously mentioned difficulties of growing up and social integration young people face in 
contemporary societies are even more expressed in so-called transitional countries. Young 
people there pass through a double transition: on one hand, this is a universal experience 
of maturing and transition from childhood and adolescence into the world of responsibility 
of adults, and on the other hand, there are changes of epochal nature initiated by the 
transition from one to another social system. Latter circumstances require reconsidering 
socialization mechanisms and social integration familiar to the generations of parents 
and grandparents of today’s youth in Croatia, as well as adopting some models more 
appropriate for the new age and European environment. The young generation of today in 
transitional societies cannot and does not want to inherit the social legacy of their parents. 
In other words, institutions, processes and social norms, that mitigated the transition into 
the world of adults to previous generations, are weakened, abandoned or in the process 
of fundamental transformation today. Therefore, young people in transitional societies are 
exposed to risks that were unknown to their parents, as well as poorly known to their peers 
in developed European societies.
However, what is common to youth in developed and transitional European societies is that 
the societies, whose integral part their represent, treat them twofold: as a social resource 
and as a social problem (i.e., a group with problems). Based on such approach, national 
policies for youth are conceived as an organized set of social instruments and mechanisms 
aimed at improving the overall social status of young people and ensuring their optimal 
social integration. Such efforts are based on simultaneous appreciation of interests and 
needs of young people, as well as of each individual society as a whole.
Appropriate foundation and implementation of the national policy for youth in 
contemporary society is especially important because of the known tendency of greater 

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individualization of young generation’s life orientations. This individualization is manifested 
by a dominant relying of young people on family resources in realization of life plans and 
ambitions, with distancing from society, i.e. its representatives. This tendency in transitional 
societies, where the process of outstanding social stratification takes place, whereby starting 
points of youth become significantly unequal, is especially unwelcome and brings to the 
forefront the support of society in realizing life plans of youth. By dominant orientation to 
personal and family resources, youth, as a distinguished social group that shares similar 
interests, problems and needs, is fragmented and atomized. Lack of relevant generational 
connection additionally weakens already poor social power of youth, so in the end they 
become disintegrated in two ways: within their own generation and within wider social 
community.
In conceiving any national policy it is certainly important to respect the fact that young 
people are not a homogenous social group. Croatian youth mutually significantly 
differs by social background, conditions of family and wider socialization, educational 
accomplishments, socioprofessional status, lifestyles, life aspirations, political views, 
behaviour patterns, etc. The existing differentiations therefore require a national policy that 
will encompass the interests and needs of different (sub)groups of young people and that 
will ensure equally good life prospects for everyone.