Generation in Waiting: The Unfulfilled Promise of Young People in the Middle East - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815703147 ISBN 13: 9780815703143

Verlag: Brookings Institution Press, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

" Young people in the Middle East (15–29 years old) constitute about one-third of the region's population. Growth rates for this age group trail only sub-Saharan Africa. This presents the region with an historic opportunity to build a lasting foundation for prosperity by harnessing the full potential of its young population. Yet young people in the Middle East face severe economic and social exclusion due to substandard education, high unemployment, and poverty. Thus the inclusion of youth is the most critical development challenge facing the Middle East today. A Generation in Waiting portrays the plight of young people, urging greater investment designed to improve the lives of this critical group. It brings together perspectives from the Maghreb to the Levant. Each chapter addresses the complex challenges facing young people in many areas of their lives: access to decent education, opportunities for quality employment, availability of housing and credit, and transitioning to marriage and family formation. This volume presents policy implications and sets an agenda for economic development, creating a more hopeful future for this and future generations in the Middle East. Selected contributors include Ragui Assaad (University of Minnesota), Brahim Boudarbat (University of Montreal), Jad Chaaban (American University in Beirut), Nader Kabbani (Syria Trust for Development), Taher Kanaan (Jordan Center for Public Policy Research and Dialogue), Djavad Salehi-Isfahani (Wolfensohn Center for Development and Virginia Tech), and Edward Sayre (University of Southern Mississippi)."

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Navtej Dhillon is a fellow at the Wolfensohn Center for Development at the Brookings Institution and director of the Middle East Youth Initiative. TarikYousef is dean of the Dubai School of Government and nonresident senior fellow at the Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings.

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GENERATION IN WAITING

The Unfulfilled Promise of Young People in the Middle East

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS

Copyright © 2009 THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8157-0314-3

Contents

Foreword Strobe Talbott....................................................................................................................................viiForeword H. E. Dr. Anwar Mohammed Gargash and James D. Wolfensohn..........................................................................................ixAbout the Middle East Youth Initiative......................................................................................................................xiAcknowledgments.............................................................................................................................................xiiiIntroduction Navtej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef...............................................................................................................11 Generation in Waiting: An Overview of School to Work and Family Formation Transitions Navtej Dhillon, Paul Dyer, and Tarik Yousef........................112 Beyond Statism: Toward a New Social Contract for Iranian Youth Djavad Salehi-Isfahani and Daniel Egel....................................................393 Rising Expectations and Diminishing Opportunities for Egypt's Young Ragui Assaad and Ghada Barsoum......................................................674 In Search of a Future: The Struggle of Young Palestinians Edward Sayre and Samia Al-Botmeh...............................................................955 The Impact of Instability and Migration on Lebanon's Human Capital Jad Chaaban...........................................................................1206 The Disconnect between Education, Job Growth, and Employment in Jordan Taher Kanaan and May Hanania......................................................1427 Moroccan Youth in an Era of Volatile Growth, Urbanization, and Poverty Brahim Boudarbat and Aziz Ajbilou.................................................1668 Tapping into the Economic Potential of Young Syrians during a Time of Transition Nader Kabbani and Noura Kamel...........................................1899 Addressing Yemen's Twin Deficits: Human Development and Natural Resources Ragui Assaad, Ghada Barsoum, Emily Cupito, and Daniel Egel.....................21110 Looking Ahead: Making Markets and Institutions Work for Young People Navtej Dhillon and Djavad Salehi-Isfahani..........................................240About the Authors...........................................................................................................................................253Index.......................................................................................................................................................259

Chapter One

NAVTEJ DHILLON, PAUL DYER, AND TARIK YOUSEF

Generation in Waiting: An Overview of School to Work and Family Formation Transitions

Representing the largest birth cohort in the history of the Middle East, the young men and women born between 1980 and 1995 are now coming of age and entering adulthood. Today, more than 100 million individuals between the ages of 15 and 29 live in the Middle East, up from less than 67 million in 1990. They make up 30 percent of the region's population and nearly 47 percent of its working- age population. Much has been promised to this generation in terms of better quality of life and greater prosperity; however, many of these promises remain elusive.

As the Middle East's youth population has grown, young people have increasingly struggled with securing critical milestones in their transition to adulthood. Across the region, education systems have failed to prepare young people for changing roles in the economy. Labor market outcomes have remained poor, with young people enduring high rates of unemployment and low- quality jobs. Delays in marriage and family formation are now common in many countries. Moreover, with limited progress in improving the quality of education and job creation, the challenges that afflict today's young people now risk being passed on to future generations.

Young people in the Middle East experience different economic, political, and social realities depending on where they grow up. Obvious distinctions include the extent to which countries rely on hydrocarbon rents, their integration with the global economy, and their levels of stability and peace. Furthermore, youth is not a homogeneous social category: gender and family income significantly influence young people's transitions. This heterogeneity is captured well by the eight country studies presented in this volume.

In this chapter, we provide a framework for understanding the common challenges facing the Middle East's young generation and how institutional reforms can lead to substantial improvements in their lives. The chapter begins by analyzing how life courses within Middle Eastern societies have been transformed in response to economic and social changes in the twentieth century. It then focuses on the interrelated challenges facing young people in their education, employment, and family formation transitions. Next, we illustrate how the institutions that govern education systems, the labor market, and family formation have failed to mediate young people's transitions, leaving them in essence as a generation in waiting. In the final section, we outline guiding principles for improving transitions for young people across the Middle East.

The Middle East's Three Life Courses

One useful way to understand the lives of young people in the Middle East is to place the temporal phase of "youth" in a larger life course framework. A life course comprises critical transitions and trajectories such as schooling, career, family, and retirement. This framework recognizes human development as a lifelong process that is shaped by individual agency, the time and place in which individuals come of age, and the opportunities and constraints of their environment. Furthermore, success in one's life is cumulative: opportunities are amplified or diminished by development outcomes in early life, especially during adolescence and youth.

The life course perspective, as it applies to young people in the Middle East, focuses largely on the school-to-work transition and the work-to-family formation transition. It draws attention to the prevailing institutions in the education system and to markets for labor, housing, and credit as well to social norms, all of which shape young people's life course. To understand the exclusion of young people, it is critical to assess how life courses, and the key institutions that support these life courses, have evolved over time in the Middle East in response to demographic pressures, and periodic prosperity and economic downturn.

Today, the Middle East is characterized by three major life courses: the traditional life course, the welfare life course, and the post-welfare life course. These life courses coexist, undergoing ebbs and flows in response to external and internal changes over time and with increases in population. The traditional life course has declined as a result of economic advancement; the welfare life course remains dominant though increasingly inadequate and the post-welfare life course is underdeveloped. The growing incongruity between these life courses, and the related failure of existing institutions to mediate the transitions of young people, have paved the way for a generation in waiting.

The...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Brookings Institution Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0815703147
• ISBN 13: 9780815703143
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 287
• Herausgeber: Dhillon Navtej
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland