Cuban Youth Searching for Their Inner Selves

Juventud Rebelde reveals the finding of its Third National Survey of Youth

The Cuban Center for Youth Studies (CESJ in Spanish) carried out an important investigation – not only learn about young people more deeply, but to encourage further studies.

The Third National Survey of Youth was given to more than 3,000 youngsters, ranging from 15 to 29 years of age, all living in urban areas in all the provinces of the island. The survey looked into conditions and influences, which included their socio-demographic characteristics, housing and economic conditions, education and employment situation, and leisure opportunities.

Below, JR describes the youth interviewed and the survey findings.

Looking Inside

For French writer Honore de Balzac, marriage was “in the end, a passionate battle where spouses ask for God’s blessing because loving ‘until death do us part’ is the most frightful of tasks.” Maybe this is why our youth suffer gamophobia (the fear of marriage). Consequently, as the survey reveals, most of them are still singles.

Another of the questions addressed is the sensitive problem of housing, a major challenge facing Cuban society as a whole, and which is also experienced by youth. More than the 50 percent of them live in houses with construction problems.

Interviewees complained about space and structural conditions of their houses, considering them insufficient for their development. Housing issues, family dependence and a lack of privacy are their principal dilemmas.

Still, it’s revealing that 72.3 percent have their own room or a minimally shared room. Overcrowding tends to be more frequent in substandard housing.

The Pocket Economy

Although the Cuban economy moved forward and overcame the harsh recession of the 1990s, people’s pockets didn’t seem to catch up that fast. The household budget of Cubans must still adjust to shortages.

Most interviewees are economically dependent on other people. Most of them live in the eastern region of the island, are women and range between the ages of 15 and 29.

The survey demonstrated that youth spend their incomes in the same way as the rest of the population: on food, clothes, shoes, and household expenses. Women and young adult share their income in accordance with other people’s needs or with those of the home.

Seeking the Other Half

Some youngsters read through the horoscope to learn of their fortune in affairs of the heart, or to look for secret aphrodisiacs or some other sort of aid to make them luckier in their pursuits. If you ask them about one of their main goals, with no hesitation they will answer: finding a partner. The same sentiments were expressed by the investigators, especially the women. They give top priority to this goal. Meanwhile youth over 25 vehemently defended the right to be single.

Love and common likes are fundamental to a successful in a relationship, asserted the youth, with all agreeing that this was regardless of sex or age.

Regarding the prior study (the Second National Survey of Youth), some of the youth’s priorities have shifted in importance. Having children, in particular, has dropped from the third to the seventh position — an alarming sign given the unbalanced aging of Cuban society.

Issues of greatest interest for this cohort were those related to employment, leisure, personal problems and future plans.

Employment on the Mind

The study demonstrated that over the 36 percent of youth are students, while high school graduates are 50 percent of this population and university graduates 35.5 percent.

The largest part of the younger generation are workers (37.7 percent). This group is made up mainly of manual laborers, technicians, and service workers — most of them working for the government.

When the study was carried out, most unemployed youth spent their time doing house chores; the rest could be divided into two groups: those who didn’t work or study and those actively looking for employment.

Just as in the second national survey, the state sector —along with the developing sector (tourism, joint ventures, and publicly-run corporations) — continue to be the most popular among youth.

Interviewees say their choice of field of employment is closely related to the country’s economic situation, the search for better working conditions as well as the pay offered.

Prejudices and Stereotypes

Although hardly no teenagers and youth said they had experienced rejection or mistreatment, they highlighted certain prejudices and stereotypes that go against the principles of Cuba’s socialist system.

A small number had experienced rejection within society, owing to difference of opinion, their economic situation, sex, or skin color.

Racial stereotypes have promoted discriminatory behavior among adolescence and youth, especially within the family and among couples.

The availability and use of free time was also underlined as a problem. The majority said to have little options for leisure. Likewise, there is a tendency to fulfill those needs using personal resources and not those provided by the government.

The primary aspirations of adolescence and youth regarding family, studies, and employment go hand in hand with the principles of Cuban society. Their main aspirations are to find a partner, to strengthen their present relationship, to go to college and work in a field that allows them to satisfy their spiritual and material needs.

Youth shift between reality and longings, between dilemmas and the dreams of solving them. Cuban youth, with its contradictions and challenges, is constructing the destiny of our country — leading the way to humanism, like the morning precedes the day.