A comparison of the results between the TEK student survey and the membership survey shows that today’s students of technology consider several things to be more important than full members (=graduated members) do.
For example, students are more strongly of the opinion that climate change mitigation is more important than industrial competitiveness.
Similarly, more students than full members feel that TEK should initiate societal debate on topics of labor legislation, labor market advocacy, skills development in working life, climate change prevention, equality, inclusiveness and entrepreneurship.
“Based on the results, students would like TEK to be seen more strongly as a pioneer and initiate discussion on these issues,” says Research Manager Susanna Bairoh.
The biggest difference is in the importance of promoting gender equality. 51% of students and 31% of full members consider this goal to be very important.
“Here, the difference between students and members who are in working life is really big. Among full members, promoting gender equality is clearly more important to women than men, but among students, the issue is strongly supported by men as well.”
The only claim that full members support more strongly than students is “I am a member of TEK because it promotes my interests.”
According to the member survey conducted by Taloustutkimus last year, TEK members can be divided into five groups: universalists, conservatives, materialists, success-driven people and world savers.
The largest group among full members, i.e. members who are in working life, is world savers, who make up around 25% of the total. 44% of students are world savers. The share of success-driven people is 21% in both groups, but the share of conservatives among students is only 9%, compared to a share of 17% among full members. When compared to full members, students are less likely to be universalists (16% vs. 25%). The corresponding percentages for the materialist group are 10% vs. 12%.
What topics does TEK study?
We at TEK are constantly researching the field of technology: employment, salaries, equality, and coping with work or studies, for example. We have studied and published information on many themes for years – you are welcome to examine and compare the results using, for example, time series visualizations. Read more about our research: www.tek.fi/research