Young people selected climate change and the destruction of nature as the most serious global issue for the third year in a row in the world’s most geographically diverse survey of millennials conducted by the World Economic Forum.

A new and related insight in this year’s edition of the Global Shapers Annual Survey is that 91 per cent of respondents agree or strongly agree that science has proven that humans are responsible for climate change.

The other issues that make up the top three global issues according to young people are: large-scale conflicts/wars in second place, and inequality in third place

Seventy-nine per cent of young respondents say that technology is creating jobs rather than destroying jobs. This is consistent with the 2016 results, albeit with a much larger sample in 2017. And this result remains strong across regions and income levels of countries.

Artificial intelligence is voted as the “next big technology trend”. And the top three sectors that could benefit from technology disruption are: education (20 per cent), health (15 per cent) and manufacturing (14 per cent).

However the results show that young people’s enthusiasm for technology has limits: 44 per cent rejected the idea of having an implant in their skin to increase their capabilities.

When asked if they would trust decisions made by a robot on their behalf, 51 per cent of young respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed.

When asked about whether they would support rights for humanoid robots, the most popular response was “No” (48 per cent). The “Yes” answer choice had only 14 per cent, while 36 per cent chose “Maybe”. When looking across sub-regions, respondents were still opposed to the idea, except in North America where 44 per cent chose “Maybe”, just ahead of “No” (41 per cent). Regionally, the strongest opposition comes from sub-Saharan Africa, with 59.0 per cent answering “No”.

More than half (56 per cent) of millennials believe that young people’s views are ignored before important decisions are taken in their country. Young respondents voted that the top three ways to empower young people in a society are through entrepreneurship/start-ups, access to the internet and free media/social media.

A large majority of young people are willing to live outside their country of residence in order to find a job or advance their career (81 per cent).For the third year in a row, the US remains the top choice for all young people willing to advance their career abroad, followed by Canada (12 per cent), UK (10 per cent), Germany (8 per cent) and Australia (5 per cent).

However, not all millennials feel the same. While the leading response was “Yes” to move across all regions, more than a third of respondents from sub-Saharan Africa would not be willing to move (37 per cent), far more than in any other region, and Eurasia also had a large number of respondents who answered “No” (25 per cent).

It is worth noting that just over a fifth of millennials from North America also said they would not be willing to live outside their country to find a job or advance their career.

The Global Shapers Annual Survey 2017 received over 31,000 responses from over 186 countries and territories of which 24,766 are considered complete and included in the final analysis.

The survey is produced by the Global Shapers Community, a network of hubs developed and led by young people who are exceptional in their potential, their achievements and their drive to make a contribution to their communities. It is an initiative of the World Economic Forum. – TradeArabia News Service