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YouthWiki

EACEA National Policies Platform
Iceland

Iceland

Overview

Last update: 20 August 2024

Youth Policy in Iceland

The Youth Act No. 70/2007 replaced an old bill on youth affairs from 1970, and denotes the general framework on youth policy.

Youth policy-making in Iceland is decentralized and there is no wholistic approach to policy-making in this field. According to the Youth Act, the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture is responsible for yout affairs, although policy-making may call for an involvement of other ministries, such as the Ministry of Welfare on issues regarding the walfare of young people, and the Ministry of Health regarding health issues of this group.

The Minister of Education, Science and Culture appoints nine officials to the Youth Council, which consults and advices the top-level authorities on youth policy.  

Much of youth-policy making takes place on the local level, where each munucipality constructs its own policy regarding youth affairs in its district.

In youth policy-making, National and local authorities are supplemented by various government agencies and NGO‘s. Among the largest are The Offiece of the Ombudsman for Children and Home and School, the National Parents Association 

Ratio of young people in the total population on 1st January

Ratio of men and women in the youth population

Statistic references

References:

Ratio (%) of young people in the total population (2017): Eurostat, yth_demo_020 [data extracted on 4/09/2018].

Absolute number of young people on 1 January for the age group 15-29 (2017): Eurostat, yth_demo_010 [data extracted on 4/09/2018].

Ratio (%) of men and women in the youth population (2017): Eurostat, yth_demo_020 [data extracted on 4/09/2018].

Young immigrants from non-EU countries (2016): Eurostat, yth_demo_070 [data extracted on 4/09/2018].