The results of a social survey of Belarusian youth were discussed on May 15, 2025, in the show "Vesti ne molchat" on the Vitebsk News YouTube channel. The Belarusian Committee of Youth Organizations, together with sociologists from the Belarusian State Economic University and the National Academy of Sciences, surveyed about 12,000 young men and women to find out what the younger generation considers the greatest value in life. More than 70% of those surveyed ranked family as their top priority. Health came in second, with over 36.5% of respondents choosing it. Career was third among their priorities. “Personal happiness” and “self-development” were selected by significantly fewer people.
Host Svyatoslav Mikhailov emphasized that the values of Belarusians differ from those of Western Europeans:
“As an example, let’s look at the results of a social survey among European Union youth, commissioned by the European Parliament in fall 2024. Young people in Europe were asked almost the same question as ours: What is important to you, and what worries you most? ... Forty percent of young people are concerned about the cost of living. Twenty-nine percent consider social protection and health care important. While 27% are focused on getting a profession, 33% are very worried about the environment. As you can see, family and children don’t appear among the most popular answers. All the issues that matter most to young people in Europe are purely materialistic,” he said.
The surveys the host compared had different objectives. Belarusian youth were asked which aspects of life are most important to them. European youth were asked which three topics from a list should be priorities for the EU over the next five years. In other words, the second group was not asked about their values. It was a closed-ended question—European respondents could only choose from the options provided. “Family” and “children” were not among them.
If we judge the importance of family by international surveys, Belarus is far from the top of the rankings. The World Values Survey, a global sociological study covering more than 120 countries since the 1980s, conducts polls every five years. Belarus took part in one of them between 2010 and 2014. At that time, respondents were asked about the importance of family in their lives and 88% of Belarusians surveyed said family is very important to them. That’s below the global average of 91%. Among others, China, Germany and Russia ranked lower than Belarus. Poland and Ukraine, for example, ranked higher. According to the survey, Qataris and Filipinos value family the most in the world.