Youth Exclusion

Youth exclusion is a form of social exclusion in which youth are at a social disadvantage in joining institutions and organizations in their societies. Troubled economies, lack of governmental programs, and barriers to education are examples of dysfunctions within social institutions that contribute to youth exclusion by making it more difficult for youth to transition into adulthood. European governments have recently recognized these shortcomings in societies organizational structures and have begun to re-examine policies regarding social exclusion. Many policies dealing with social exclusion are targeted at youth since this demographic of people face a transition into adulthood; defining career and lifestyle choices that will affect the future culture and structure of a society.

Youth exclusion is multi-dimensional in that age, race, gender, class and lifestyle all affect youth life experiences within a given culture. This intersectionality affects the degree to which an individual youth experiences exclusion. Similarly, youth exclusion is context specific. This means that youth are excluded from society in different ways depending on their cultural and spatial locations. A simple difference between the opportunities and resources provided in one neighborhood can create a divide among youth who are included and youth who are excluded from their communities. Another consideration is that youth exclusion is relational insofar as social exclusion contains two parties, the excluders and the excluded. Pertaining to youth exclusion, the excluders are often older generations who believe that the economic support services and institutions that help the youth puts their own comfortable standard of living at risk. All of these demographic, cultural, spatial and relational factors contribute to the worldwide experiences of youth exclusion.

Youth exclusion can be examined by dividing its causes into social and cultural factors. Structural reasons for exclusion include inequalities in power as seen by the inequalities generated in the normal functions of the housing and labor markets. Prolonged unemployment and low income can affect a person's ability to have access to social structures that advance a person in society by opening doors to new opportunities and creating a sense of society acceptance and inclusion. Also on a structural level, youth are excluded from broader society through barriers to education and discriminatory government policies.

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