A Comparative History of Age-Structure and Social Transitions Among Asian Youth

Abstract

The youth explosion or youth bulge is an important political and policy issue in Asia as in other regions of the world but it is an issue subject to a good deal of misunderstanding and misplaced emphasis. The long view taken in this paper highlights the significant magnitude but temporary character of the youth bulge. The cross-national comparative perspective brings out that Asian societies today are found at all stages of both the demographic and the youth transitions. The argument is made that in policy deliberations the absolute numbers of youth should take second place to the more important element of social change and changing social composition among youth and that recent Asian history has seen a unique confluence of demographic and social changes. Combining U.N.-estimated national population data for the 1950-1990 period and the U.N.’s population projections through 2025 provides an historical perspective on youth demographic transitions in seventeen Asian countries. These demographic data are linked with reconstructions and projections of similar scope for selected aspects of social transformation among youth over the same span of time. Analysis reveals a combination of demographic youth bulge and concurrent social composition transformations among youth that the authors label the “youth transition.” That this is an historically unique conjunction of demographic and social changes is highlighted by contrasts with European experience during that continent’s own demographic transitions many decades earlier. (authors)