Za ili protiv života na selu? Stavovi visokoobrazovanih mladih ljudi o životu u hrvatskim ruralnim područjima

Abstract

The exodus of young people represents one of the key issues for the survival of Croatian rural areas in the demographic sense, but also, consequentially, in the economic, social, cultural, political and every other aspect. The decrease in the number of young people among the rural population is visible in the senilization of the rural areas, as well as deagrarization, and overall deruralization, and a continued decline of rural areas as places of life and work. Considering that the young population is mostly leaving the rural areas because of education and employ-ment, especially in sectors that employ the higher educated, the aim of this article is to examine the push and pull factors for returning or moving to the rural areas from the perspective of the Croatian young higher educated population. This article brings the results from the quantitative empirical study conducted in 2020 using the method of online questionnaire on the convenient sample of N=582 students from six faculties of the University of Zagreb, which encompassed all major scientific and art fields. The students were asked about their perception of the advantages and disadvantages of living in rural areas, as well as about their desire for moving or returning to the rural areas after finishing their education, and the reasons why. They were also asked about specific elements of infrastructure that were shown in previous research as an important factor in their decision to return or move to rural areas. Finally, the responses were correlated with their socio-demo-graphic characteristics. The results show that 40% of students want to return/move to rural areas, with over half of students (55%) who come from rural areas, and significantly less those from urban areas, who prefer to stay in the cities. In order to attract the higher educated young population to rural areas, the key is to improve communal and traffic infrastructure, as well as provide more op-portunities for them to work in their professions, primarily by enabling better traffic connec-tion with neighbouring cities in which they plan to work. Regarding work in agriculture, they feel that financial support, especially for urban young people who do not have family farms and existing infrastructure to rely on, would make their beginnings in agriculture easier.