Young people in Catalonia are, proportionally, becoming more right-wing and more aligned with Spanish nationalist and unionist postulates, warns Òmnium Cultural, which this Friday has presented a study by its Guillem Agulló training centre from which this conclusion emerges: today's youth perceive the Catalan language as less useful and "defend it less", they are less in favour of independence for Catalonia and identify less with the pro-sovereignist parties. In addition, in the case of males, there is growing skepticism towards climate change, taxes and feminist postulates, as well as showing less concern for the advance of the extreme right in Catalonia and the world, with a greater adherence in many cases to some of the axioms of this reactionary wave.
As the president of the cultural NGO, Xavier Antich, and one of the study authors, political science professor Marc Guinjoan, warned in the presentation of the study results, young people show urgent concerns about issues such as the difficulty of accessing housing or job insecurity, which displace issues relating to Catalonia's national status. In fact, in order of priority, these two are the main topics of social and political interest, above others such as climate change, employment, racism or feminism. The lowest priority among the options offered to respondents was the independence of Catalonia, and that is precisely where the biggest generational gap between young people and older adults is found, the survey notes.
In response to this trend, Òmnium seeks to give a wake-up call to the independence movement and the Catalanist parties to offer a project that responds to these problems, a horizon of hope and "enthusiasm", so as not to lose the support of youth. It also urges them to opt for an integrative independence movement that assumes the diversity of Catalan society, 70% of which comes directly or indirectly from migratory processes - in short, "national construction from diversity" - and which "links the construction of the nation to the improvement of living conditions" for young people.
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Trend towards Spanish nationalism
There is a significant gap between the ideological positioning that young people and older adults attribute to themselves: with regard to the political ideas of Spanish nationalism, on a scale of 0-10 of adherence to such postulates, older adults place themselves at 3.15 (men) and 3.59 (women) on average, while young people locate themselves at 4.43 (men) and 4.88 (women). According to Guinjoan, this shift to a Spanish nationalist orientation among young people is the "most surprising" result of the survey. Regarding support for self-determination, if examined by age, young respondents show less support for Catalonia becoming an independent State (27%), while among older adults the percentage is 34%. Also worth noting is a high non-response among the young on the self-determination question. Nineteen percent say they have no opinion - and thus, it may be an issue that may not interest them.
Self-placement on a 0 (not at all) -10 (completely) scale for Spanish nationalism, by age groups of Catalans
Regarding their assessment of the 2017 independence referendumn, 43% of adults think it was "a legitimate act", while only 29% of young people think so. The study also shows a drop in support for the hegemonic independence parties among young people: by 2% in the case of ERC and 3% in the case of Junts. Even the CUP is affected by this trend, with greater support among adults than among young people. However, the survey indicates that young people are experiencing a growing political disaffection in terms of support for parties: at least 35% of respondents do not identify with any of the main parties in Catalonia.
Catalan, at work
As for the Catalan language, the Òmnium study shows how its use is greater in the workplace than in the personal sphere, especially among women, while in the sphere of partners, friendships and family, it is less important. The assessment of the language and its "usefulness" is higher among adults, and, in fact, young men are the group who see Catalan as least useful and the ones who use it the least. Although not with great differences by generation, the use of Catalan is usually slightly broader among older adults.
Males further right, on climate change, feminism, Francoism and taxes
Finally, Omnium warns of a growing tendency among young people, especially young males, towards right-wing postulates, in line with the reactionary wave that is sweeping Europe and the world. Asked about questions which form part of the recurrent far-right discourse on issues such as climate change, feminism, Francoism, historical memory and taxes, many young men show greater adherence to ultra ideas than other demographic groups do: they believe to a higher degree that lower taxes are necessary, that feminism has "gone too far", that climate change is "an exaggeration" and that the historical memory of Francoism must be left aside. They are also broadly in favour of controlling immigration - although this is a trend with broad support across all polled groups.
Self-placement on a 0 (far left) -10 (far right) scale for their political positions on a left-right spectrum, by age groups of Catalans