Israeli youth ranked family and health - not money - as most important to them

The survey, carried out by Geocartography during the first week of August, included a sample of 350 youth between the ages of 12 – 17. The Jewish-Israeli youth were all Internet users.

By HAYAH GOLDLIST-EICHLER
Updated: AUGUST 12, 2015 02:49
Members of Bnei Akiva youth movement, welcome, thank flight crews for coming to Israel (photo credit: DANIEL WINER)
Members of Bnei Akiva youth movement, welcome, thank flight crews for coming to Israel
(photo credit: DANIEL WINER)
Family, health and studies are the most important considerations for Israeli Jewish youth, according to a study commissioned by the First International Bank of Israel that was released on Monday.
The survey, carried out by the Geocartography Institute during the first week of August, included a sample of 350 youth between the ages of 12 and 17. They were all Internet users.
Seventy-nine percent of the youth surveyed ranked family and family relationships as one of the most important issues in their lives. Their health and their families followed closely behind (73%) followed by studies and the importance of excellence in studies (68%).
Issues that trailed behind in their importance to youth were social lives (58%) and money (32%). Even less important to youth were girl/ boy relationships (20%) and the issue of volunteering and helping those around them (21%).
Girls (74%) were more likely to rank studies as important than were boys (62%) while boys ranked the issues of girl/boy relationships (24%) and money (38%) higher than girls did (17% and 25%, respectively).
Nearly 27% of respondents ranked hi-tech as the area in which they’d most like to work in. Here, too, the gender breakdown showed a clear difference between boys and girls, with 40% of boys versus 12% of girls ranking hi-tech as the most desired profession.
Medicine and research were ranked the most desirable career fields by some 14%, with 20% of girls favoring the profession compared to 8% of boys. Trailing behind were the fields of business and entrepreneurship (7% of youth ranked them as most desirable), and teaching (5%).
All other professions ranked far behind that. Twenty percent of the youth responded that they did not know what profession they would like to work in.
Finally, the survey asked the youth where their recreation and leisure spending money came from. Nearly 31% of the youth said that pocket money given to them from their parents was their sole source of income while 14% said that working was their sole source of income. Forty-five percent said that they have both work income and money from parents, with most of their funds coming from their parents.
Close to 10% of youth responded that they do not have any money for recreation and leisure spending.
Boys (17%) were more likely to have work as their sole source of income as girls (10%) and girls (34%) were more likely to have pocket money from parents as the sole source of income than boys (28%). Boys were twice as likely than girls not to have any income at all.
The study was conducted as part of Turning Point, a community project by the First International Bank of Israel in partnership with the Matan and JDC-Israel Ashalim programs.
The Turning Point initiative develops programs to help youth in Israel.