Youth Study Slovenia 2018/2019, is the product of a broad survey conducted last year among 1,000 young people aged between 14 and 29, and is part of a project carried out in ten SE European countries.

"Individualism is increasingly prevalent among the youth, which is being manifested in many areas, from greater care for personal health to getting independent from parents faster, and increasingly individualist values," research manager Andrej Naterer from the University of Maribor said in presenting the study on Wednesday.

One of the findings is that in the period between 2010 and 2016 the number of young people leaving the country increased almost four-fold. It is the youth from wealthier families who tend to move out more often, which shows the pull factors are more important than the push factors.

Naterer said that at the same time youth immigration was increasing as well, with trends indicating circular migration.

When it comes to their values and opinions, young people are increasingly pro-European. Compared to their peers in other countries, they have very liberal values, but they are very supportive of the idea of a strong welfare state.

Researcher Miran Lavrič said that young people were worried about their health, had higher level of stress, which induced them to be active in sports.

"We are by far the most active in this respect, we have very active youth. Alcohol consumption has declined substantially as well so that Slovenian youth is increasingly responsible, in particular in the individualistic sense, because they feel they must take care of themselves in a very precarious labour market," said Lavrič.

The most surprising finding as pointed out by him was that among youth surveyed in all SE European countries, young Albanians are the happiest with their lives, whereas Slovenian youth are the least happy with their lives and with their physical appearance.

This is the second major youth study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Centre for the Study of the Post-Yugoslav Societies at the Maribor Faculty of Arts after the one in 2013.