As countries ease lockdown restrictions and economic aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic expose deep fissures that always existed, youth in the South Asian region face an increasingly precarious future. If the phrase ‘unprecedented’ situation is anything to go by, we should know by now that we are in for a long and drawn-out recovery period.
Looking ahead, there has never been a greater emphasis on promoting fresh skill sets as the nature of labour markets undergoes a seismic shift. But are youth in South Asia equipped to take on this challenge? With the largest youth population in the world, reaping the demographic dividend is crucial if we want to play a larger role in the changing global power structure.
The ‘2030 Skills Scorecard’, released late last year by the Global Business Coalition for Education (GBC-Education), Education Commission and UNICEF, highlights some truly worrying projections for the future of the region. The report estimates the percentage of children on track to complete secondary school and learn basic skills by 2030 in five regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, Latin America, East Asia and the Pacific.
In South Asia (Afghanistan has not been included due to lack of recent learning assessment data at the secondary level), it is estimated that more than half (54%) of the children will leave school without the skills needed to succeed in the future workforce. The only region which has a bleaker prediction is Sub-Saharan Africa, where this figure stands at 83%.
Putting these figures in context, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore was quoted as saying, “Every day, nearly 100,000 young South Asians—a large sports stadium of young people—enter the labour market, almost half of them not on track to find 21st-century jobs.”
This crisis in skilling is only compounded by the job-scarce environment, and broken economic system COVID-19 has left us. It is abundantly clear that investing in youth and skills that inculcate resilience is the way forward. And there is an equally important component we need to consider in this conversation on the future of our youth: how have their aspirations been hit and what can we do to prevent hope from turning to despair?
Aspiration Versus Reality
In India, for instance, youth arguably have greater access and exposure to the outside world, compared to previous generations. While the degree of exposure varies across socio-economic and regional backgrounds, this change has been largely enabled by technology, the meteoric rise of cheap mobile data plans and different forms of media.
The promise of technology, when delivered equitably, is huge—it has the potential to transform lives and drive imagination. Indian youth are no exception to this—they are equally drawn to all sorts of hopes and dreams made increasingly available to them. But are they able to find an outlet to meet their aspirations?
Early last year, during fieldwork in Punjab, I remember coming across several stories of youth fighting a losing battle between aspiration and reality. Most school-going children we interacted with wished to become doctors, policemen or teachers after graduation. They were full of hope despite adverse circumstances. This was contrasted by a sense of disillusionment among individuals in their 20s.
In village Malakpur Khyala, 25-year-old Jaspreet Singh recalled how he was enrolled in college on sports quota. Numerous medals and trophies were displayed on the bare brick walls of his house. Having represented Punjab in national wrestling competitions, he expected to get a government job easily. He filled numerous forms after completing college. It has been four years since he received an update on his application.
Jaspreet and many others, angry at the State for failing to provide jobs, find themselves with no choice but to continue working on the field. His neighbour, Sherbaj Singh, who lives a few houses away, finds himself in a similar situation. Sherbaj, who recently completed his Masters in History, seemed to have quite a few opinions on the rising phenomenon of ‘WhatsApp history’ or largely distorted historical phenomena circulated through the medium of WhatsApp. His enthusiasm for the subject continues to exist, but only as a hobby. There are no jobs for Sherbaj either, and he too works on the field.
Intersecting Inequalities
Youth across South Asia increasingly find that their existing skill sets are not materialising into the kind of future they envisioned for themselves. But it would be wrong to bucket all youth in the same category. ‘Intersecting inequalities’ is a term used by Veronica Paz Arauco, Naila Kabeer and others in a report published by Overseas Development Institute in 2014 to refer to the “economic deficits intersecting with discrimination and exclusion on the grounds of identity and locational disadvantage.” Economic recovery plans need to make an active effort to account for this differential impact.
To illustrate the extent of gendered impacts in the region, one can refer to the proportion of youth Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET). This is a metric used to monitor global progress on SDG 8 which aims at ensuring “decent work and economic growth” and more specifically on SDG 8.6.1 which targets “substantially reducing the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training by 2020.”
Making use of the latest available figures, this table can be used to highlight differences in the NEET rate based on sex in South Asian countries. With the necessary caveat that labour market contexts vary substantially across the region and disaggregated data would provide a more thorough understanding of specific disadvantages, what is still alarming is the large gender gap in NEET rates in almost every country in the region.
Young women are much more likely as young men to fall in the NEET category. Barring the Maldives, the difference in NEET rates ranges from twice the figure to almost seven times in the case of Pakistan. These numbers make it clear that while youth face extreme economic uncertainty, the impact is disproportionately borne by women and other marginalised groups.
It is indeed frightening when we add the COVID-19 effect to these vulnerabilities. We know from past crises that prolonged economic uncertainty drives a feeling of frustration and resentment. Given the current and projected demographic composition of South Asia, policymakers must treat investment in youth as a top priority.
Moving forward, there are some measures governments can take to secure the future of the youth. There has to be a proactive response to first identify the most vulnerable sections, seek to address existing skilling gaps, and infuse a greater capacity for resilience and flexibility in our educational systems to enable smoother school-to-work transitions. We must fix this crisis of hope and equip youth to deal with an unpredictable and changing landscape in times to come. Fail to do so, and we will lose our natural advantage to other regions.
About the author: Anoushka Gupta works at ASER Centre, research wing of Pratham Education Foundation, one of India’s largest non-profits in the education sector. She graduated with a first-class honours degree in History from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi in 2019. The views expressed here are personal.