Three out of ten young Brazilians wish to run their own business
Three out of ten young Brazilians aged 18–27 would like to run their own business, according to a survey released Thursday (Dec. 19) by the Center for the Study of Society, University and Science (Sou_Ciência) at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), in partnership with the IDEIA Research Institute.
The study found that the level of education influences interest in entrepreneurship. The higher the degree of schooling, the greater the interest in having one’s own company. Young black (31%) and pardo (32%) Brazilians are also the most interested in running their own business.
“It’s striking because we see a significant number of young people employed under the CLT [Consolidation of Labor Laws]—around 42 percent—who do not wish to remain so. There is a movement towards other forms of work,” explained Pedro Arantes, a professor at Unifesp and a researcher at Sou_Ciência.
Other young people interviewed also revealed their desire to work as civil servants (18%), to live off income or investments (18%), to be self-employed (12%), and to work as salaried employees (11%). Eight percent said they did not want to work.
In an interview with Agência Brasil, the researcher said that the survey reveals that “young people don’t want to be working class.” “An employment booklet [where every regular job is registered] is not an object of desire. And among the self-employed and entrepreneurs, there is a clear desire for them to run their own business or their own life, whether as individuals or companies,” he noted.
Also according to the study, the political position of these young people revealed contrasts: those who identified themselves as left-wing were more interested in becoming civil servants (28%). Unlike young people on the right, who are more interested in having their own business (38%).
Entitled O que pensam os jovens brasileiros (“What Young Brazilians Think”), the survey heard 1,034 young people from all Brazilians regions, who answered 55 questions by cell phone from September 16 to 23, 2024. The margin of error is three percentage points, with a 95 percent confidence interval.
Corruption
The poll also heard from young people on a number of other topics. When asked, for example, about 13 issues that are present in Brazilians’ daily lives, the majority of them said that corruption is the country’s main problem, with 34 percent of responses. In the 2021 survey, corruption had ranked sixth, with 26 percent. That year, hunger and poverty stood atop the list, with 66 percent.
In both the current and previous studies, violence and lack of security came second. This year, 30 percent of responses pointed to violence as Brazil’s main problem.
“Young people are the social group that lives on the streets the most, they’re the most exposed to and those who most commonly fall victims to violence, surveillance, and repression. That’s why they have a more acute perception of violence and recognize it as the second main problem [in the country],” said the researcher.
Corruption is a greater concern for men, the upper classes, Evangelicals, and those who declare themselves to be right-wing or center-right. Violence and the lack of security are of greater concern to women, people from lower classes, people in Northeast Brazil, Catholics, and people who say they are more left-leaning or center-left.
Next come health care (26%), the environmental and climate crisis (24%), education (23%), unemployment (23%), inflation and the cost of living (22%), hunger and misery (18%), racism and discrimination (14%), fake news and disinformation (13%), basic sanitation and housing (11%), attacks on democracy (6%), and land disputes (3%).
According to the survey, the topic around the environmental, climate, and water crisis was the one that grew the most compared to 2021. Four years ago, this issue was in tenth place, with seven percent of the responses. Now it has risen to fourth place, up 243 percent.
Political stance
The majority of those interviewed (67 percent of the total) declared that they were neither right-wing nor left-wing, which indicates that young Brazilians are far removed from Brazil’s polarization. Around 17 percent of respondents declared themselves to be right-wing or center-right, 16 percent as left-wing or center-left, and nine percent center. But a large number of young people (31%) said they had never held a political position. A further seven percent say that they once had a political position and no longer do. The rest (20%) preferred not to answer.
“Two-thirds of young people said they are neither left-wing nor right-wing. That’s a large propotion of people who don't put the ideological question as a priority for positioning themselves,” Arantes said. “This apparent depoliticization or lack of interest in a clear ideological position perhaps indicates that young people are interested in thinking about the world outside this zone of open conflict that has become politics in Brazil.”
The respondents were also asked about their political party affinities considering the scenario with the two biggest adversaries in national political life today. Thus, 23 percent of those interviewed declared themselves to be Bolsonaro supporters or closer to the thinking of former President Jair Bolsonaro, while 28 percent declared themselves to be PT (Workers’ Party) supporters or close to the ideals of current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The largest segment, however, consisted of those who did not agree with any of the above: 33 percent. Those who did not know or preferred not to answer totaled 16 percent.
On the other hand, Arantes added, the survey showed a strong polarization among young people who recognize themselves as being on the right or the left in relation mainly to behavioral or social issues. The recognition of same-sex marriage, for example, has the support of 80 percent of the left-wingers heard in the survey, while among right-wingers this figure drops to 27 percent.
On the other hand, the expansion of militarized schools has the support of 68.6 percent of young right-wingers, while among left-wingers approval stood at 26 percent. With regard to affirmative action in spaces at public universities, left-wingers support maintaining or expanding this policy twice as much as right-wingers—66 to 33 percent.
Anxiety and depression
Mental health problems, like anxiety and depression, are the ones that most affect young Brazilians, said 38 percent of those interviewed. This problem is a consensus among the different groups heard by the survey, whether they are young people from the left or the right, men or women, with higher or lower incomes, Catholics, atheists or Evangelicals, white, black, and pardo respondents, university students or non-university students, or followers of any region.
“What most affects young people in Brazil today are problems of anxiety and depression and other associated mental health problems that may be related to the pandemic, hate speech, persecution of minorities, intolerance and religious fundamentalism, as well as technology and hyper-exposure. But it also has to do with the deregulated world of work, where people don’t have clearly established working hours and targets and suffer more types of pressure,” Arantes pointed out.
“And we noticed that young people with more education—university students—are the ones who point to this as the biggest problem. This is also associated with pressure in academic life and with professional expectations that can be frustrated by the crisis in the world of work,” he added.
This is followed by drug use (28%); violence and crime (25%); addiction to cell phones, social networks, or games (24%); unemployment and precarious work (23%); and lack of prospects for the future (22%).
In the previous survey, young people named unemployment and precarious work (44%) and a lack of future prospects (33%) as their biggest problems. Depression and anxiety ranked third, with 32 percent.
