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Today in Ukraine, people aged between 15 and 28 number a little more than 10 million, and their ratio is dropping, as is the birth rate, while child mortality is on an upward curve. About 80% of the younger generation registers various physical malfunctions.
Today, the problems in Ukraine strongly influence the life of the younger generations. Most young people have rather low personal income; their parents don't earn enough money to support their families properly; very low salaries and black wages pose a great threat for many families; lots of parents are unemployed.
These circumstances lead to bad and poor living conditions. The poor economic situation in Ukraine has bad impact on the life of the whole nation and causes many problems on each personal level.
Another phenomenon is that many young people these days think less of mental work, education, research, and knowledge in general.
Of course, all these uncontroversial issues take place and make influence on young Ukrainian people.
Therefore, young Ukrainian people and especially young Ukrainian women plunge into different kinds of businesses headlong, grabbing quick bucks here and there, wheeling and dealing, acting as commercial intermediaries with out the proper training and experience.
An increasing number of these young people are making money in a manner far remote from honest and painstaking professional work. A great number of young people support various marketing forms in Ukraine but they are opposed to the manner in which these reforms are implemented.
In short, these problems are faced by young Ukrainians who could be grouped as follows: I) employment; 2) worsening conditions of young families, obliteration of their educational functions; 3) growing housing problems; 4) increasing of youth crime rate; 5) crisis of culture and moral values, and 6) lowering public activity etc.
Different problems of Ukrainian youth are caused not only by today's economic hardships. The worst destabilizing factor in the modern Ukrainian community is the crisis of consciousness and cultural and moral values.
We have here a formidable contradiction that deserves separate consideration. On the one hand, the gratifying fact is that the most young people whole-heartedly support the political course aimed at building an independent, free and sovereign democratic state.
On the other hand, these young people have never placed much trust in any of the three branches of power. They simply do not expect any support from the state. In tackling their problems, young people rely on their own resources in the first place. All the government has to do is to give youth a bit of support.
The situation with young families is poor too. Statistics show that the number of registered Ukrainian marriages has dropped by 20% over the past decade. The number of official divorces has increased by 20%. There are an increasing number of families, which want to have fewer children or they don’t want to have children at all.
Today, there are more than half of new families have only one child per couple, and about one fourth of the families are without children.
Young Ukrainian women today are more pragmatic and actively independent. They rely more on their own resources and do not expect the state or anyone else to solve their problems for them. They show less public activity in joining political parties and volunteer organizations (youth organizations included).
They are eager to get higher education and well paid jobs. They show less cultural demands and take a simpler approach to cultural and moral values. There is a crisis in terms of ideals, and a loss in terms of general human values.
We think it is necessary now not only to help young people with some of their problems, but also to pay more attention to the youth on a political level. The government should treat youth as a top priority sector of the population, because the future of the country depends on the younger generations.
THE GENERATION GAP
The generation gap is a phenomenon that existed long before Elvis Presley became the King of Rock and Roll and it is the cause of a great many of household conflicts. Let's face the reality, when kids become teenagers, peer pressure becomes more important than parents' pressure. Children often become rebellious. Parents don't seem to understand them at all. Parents impose on their children their own ideas on how they should act, what they should wear, and whom they should make friends or date with. They are too worried about their children. There is always a lot of misunderstandings.
Someone must teach young people what is right and what is wrong, and that means it should be the parents. No one family is going to succeed if its children have lost discipline and they are out of control.
Kids often rebel against order and discipline. They want to be free to make their own decisions, though it's quite difficult for them to stay out of troubles. Parents want their children to be responsible for their actions.
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