Elements of life satisfaction among young adults in Serbia

ABSTRACT

Contemporary sociological studies argue that employment and personal life have diversified effects as determinants of life satisfaction (LS) of young adults. We have, therefore, decided to explore the three different aspects of general LS, satisfaction with personal (intimate) domain, satisfaction with family life and satisfaction with occupation (professional domain), by using the survey data on 1627 young adults aged from 19 to 35 from Serbia. The correlations between the three domains are significant, while the strongest tie is between satisfaction with intimate relations and satisfaction with family life. The analysis exposed that social variables (employment, education, housing autonomy and financial autonomy) and personal variables (partnership and parenthood) are in a diverse manner related to the three domains of LS, as well as that their effects are different for young men and women. Taking into account particularities of social context in Serbia, we have introduced functional autonomy (decision-making and acting independent of parents) as mediating variable. The results uncover that functional autonomy has little influence on satisfaction with occupation, while social variables have a strong effect, suggesting that agency in professional domain is significantly socially bound. Regression models reveal divergent and gender-specific relations of variables and three aspects of LS related to particular structural and cultural context in Serbia that sets limits to gender detraditionalization.

KEYWORDS:

• Young adults
• life satisfaction
• gender differences
• detraditionalization
• Serbia

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Siyka Kovacheva from the University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Herwig Reiter from German Youth Institute, Munich, Germany, and Mina Petrović and Ivana Spasić from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of the paper. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent opinions of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the University of Fribourg.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The comprehensive survey based on individual face-to-face interviews was carried out on random national representative sample of 1627 young people aged 19–35, with quotas set for four age cohorts: 19/20, 24/25, 29/30, and 34/35, in March and April 2011 (Tomanović et al. 2012).

2. Items selected from Psychological Separation Inventory Scale (Hoffman 1984).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia [grant number 179035], and by the Regional Research Promotion Programme in the Western Balkans (RRPP), which is run by the University of Fribourg upon a mandate of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.