Youth unemployment

Youth unemployment is the unemployment of young people, defined by the United Nations as 15–24 years old. An unemployed person is defined as someone who does not have a job but is actively seeking work. In order to qualify as unemployed for official and statistical measurement, the individual must be without employment, willing and able to work, of the officially designated 'working age' and actively searching for a position. Youth unemployment rates are historically four to five times more than the adult rates in every country in the world.

There are 1.2 billion youth in the world aged between 15 and 24, accounting for 17% of the world's population. 87% of them live in developing countries. The age range defined by the United Nations addresses the period when mandatory schooling ends until the age of 24. This definition remains controversial as it not only impacts unemployment statistics but also plays an important role in the targeted solutions designed by policy makers in the world.

Two main debates are ongoing today. First, defining the age range of youth is not as obvious as it seems. Two theoretical perspectives have dominated this debate. Youth can be seen as a stage in life between adolescence and adulthood or as a socially constructed group with its own sub-culture, making it difficult to establish a comparable age range between countries. Second, the definition of unemployment itself leads to the possibility of not accounting for a number of young people left out of work. Those who do not have a job and are not actively seeking work – oftentimes women – are considered inactive and are therefore excluded in unemployment statistics. Their inclusion would substantially increase the unemployment rate.

There are multiple and complex causes behind youth unemployment. Among them, the quality and relevance of education, inflexible labour market and regulations, which in turn create a situation of assistance and dependency, are the main causes discussed today.

The quality and relevance of education is often considered as the first root cause of youth unemployment. In 2010, in 25 out of 27 developed countries, the highest unemployment rate was among people with primary education or less Yet, high education does not guarantee a decent job. For example, in Tunisia, 40% of university graduates are unemployed against 24% of non-graduates. This affects highly educated young females in particular. "In Turkey, the unemployment rate among university educated women is more than 3 times higher than that of university educated men; in Iran and the United Arab Emirates, it is nearly 3 times; and in Saudi Arabia, it is 8 times".

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Wikipedia