Rural and/or scarcely populated areas are often described as problem-regions in the Swedish media. One of the areas' major problem is the out-magration of young people. As a youth researcher it is therefore interesting to see how the life of young people in these areas is lived. The aim of this paper is to describe and the discuss the existen research on young people in rural and/or scarcely populated areas in the Nordic countries in general and Sweden in particular. For this aim, both literature dealing with these issues specifically and literature dealing with rural/scarcely populated areas in gereneral was studied. The research deals with subjects such as "everyday life and culture", "education and labour market", "plans for the future", "migration" and "critique of mainstream youth research". The ways in which these themes are studied is described and analyzed. The assumption is that the research in this area is limited and the issues are approached on a very basic level. There is thus a need to look more thoroughly into several aspects of young peoples' lives. In accordance with the literature it will be argued that mainstream youth research has to have a more regionally sensitive approach to youth and its living conditions.