Youth policy

National youth policy

Having a good life can involve a lot of different things for young people – amongst other things it is about having a good standard of living, being able to influence one’s own life and having the same rights and opportunities to participate in society as other groups.

The objectives of youth policy are that all young people between the ages of 13 and 25 are to have good living conditions, the power to form their own lives and influence over developments in society.

National youth policy is formulated by the government and parliament. Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society is responsible for following up and analysing young people’s life situation in the most important areas of youth policy. We do this in the report series Young today, Focus and Young people with attitude.

Municipal youth policy

National youth policy is not binding on the municipalities and instead each municipality formulates its own local youth policy. At the regional and local levels, we work to support and develop youth policy work. We also work to ensure that the measures that are implemented are based on knowledge about young people’s situation, the conditions affecting their lives and their opinions.

Half of Sweden’s 290 municipalities have made use of our youth questionnaire Lupp®, which is formulated as a follow-up tool for youth policy at the local level. The questionnaire is designed to enable municipalities, city districts or regions to easily obtain a picture of young people’s situation. The questionnaire includes questions to young people on work, school, health, future dreams, influence and democracy.

International youth policy

The programme Erasmus+ Youth in Action is one of the EU’s tools for implementing the joint European youth policy. The Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society is Sweden’s national office for Erasmus+ Youth in Action. Sweden also participates in international youth policy collaborations within the frameworks of the EU, the UN, the Council of Europe, the Nordic Committee for Children and Young People, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and the Council of the Baltic Sea States.