Fróðskaparrit - 01.07.2004, Page 11

FISKA ELLA IKKI FISKA. FATAN FØROYSKRA UNGDÓMSINS
AV FISKI OG FISKISKAPI
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women) through domestic and foreign tele-
vision emissions in the Faroe Islands.
In a comparative sociological study
(Jónsson et al., 2000) 538 Faroese, Ice-
landic and Greenlandic teenagers were,
among many other questions, asked: What
do you think is going to be your future po-
sitiort? - 6.5 percent of the Faroese respon-
dents said ‘agriculture/fishing’, while the
corresponding figures for Iceland and
Greenland were only 3.7 and 2.5 percent
respectively. There were in total 92 Faroese
respondents of the average age of nineteen,
and eighteen answering alternatives to this
specific question. The favourite future oc-
cupations of Faroese youths were the vague
‘social science’ and ‘trade and office’ cate-
gories, each with thirteen percent scores.
Most young people in the Faroe Islands
are working during summertime, many
also after school in the evenings. While
permanently employed workers are on va-
cation, young people serve as their replace-
ments and gather some hard-earned money.
More than one half of the respondents in
the survey made by the Centre for Local
and Regional Development have worked in
the fishing or fish farming industries some-
time in their lives, Tórshavn being the only
place where the majority is without experi-
ences from the fisheries, while not less than
75 percent of youths from industrial re-
gional towns have working experiences
from the fisheries. Young people with ex-
periences from the fisheries have in most
cases been employed in fish fillet factories,
i.e. engaged in the least skilled industrial
work.
Taking all kinds of work besides school
into consideration, Tórshavn youth are as
hard-working as the rest.
The prospects for the fisheries in the
Faroe Islands may seem rather negative
from the data presented, because the fish-
ing industry is not a top working or leisure
priority, but on the other hand, most people
work in other businesses in the Faroe Is-
lands already. There is nothing new in that.
The fishing industry, of course, doesn’t re-
quire the whole youth generation for its
survival. The aim is to get resourceful and
well-educated people with creative capaci-
ties to the fisheries. Moreover, many youths
dreaming of ‘fancy’ challenging jobs far
from the smell of fish, end up working in
the fishing industry anyway, because they
have to take what they can get - or what
gives money: “The fish smell, but people
always come back to the smell of money”
(quoted in Apostle et al., 2002: 101). The
fishing industry is much more varied and
flexible than we usually seem to think.
Tórshavn youth
Even if most young people have a connec-
tion to the fisheries through family and
friends, the majority prefers, as we have
seen, to make career in other parts of the
labour market. In a survey that I made in an
8th grade class from a random lower sec-
ondary school in Tórshavn, composed of
24 pupils aged fourteen and fifteen, only
two persons had working preferences asso-
ciated with the fisheries: ‘to work on a fish-
ing ship’ and ‘chef’. The class was also
asked about leisure-time activities, none of
the pupils mentioned ‘fishing’, one out of
seventeen options given. Even if they were