Youth Bulge Research Articles

Domesticating Youth: Youth Bulges and Their Socio‐Political Implications in Tajikistan by Sophie Roche. New York: Berghahn, 2014. 292 pp.

Domesticating Youth: Youth Bulges and Their Socio‐Political Implications in Tajikistan by Sophie Roche. New York: Berghahn, 2014. 292 pp.

Conclusion: the era of mass early career academics and aging faculty – Africa's paradox

African higher education has witnessed phenomenal enrollment growth in the last decade – and this trend is expected to continue well into the future owing to the continent’s youth bulge. In this ‘massifying’ system, the academic profession faces a paradox: as the academic profession at the senior level is aging it is also concurrently growing younger at the lower level. The situation is serious in the newer institutions – which are dominated by academic neophytes – with limited guidance and role models in their midst. This trend has become a concern both inside and outside academia. This article provides a concise background on the state of higher education in Africa, discusses issues surrounding Early Career Academics in global context, and concludes with a glance of the African practice with the induction to the academic profession, with emphasis on teaching praxis.

Addressing Socio-Economic Challenges to Curb Youth Participation in Terrorism in Africa

The scourge of terrorism has become an international crisis after the 9/11 attacks in America. Terrorism has deeply encroached its claws in Africa on the premise of socio-economic challenges along the clash of civilizations. In countries such as Nigeria, Somalia, Central African Republic, Kenya and the Maghreb region, terrorism is a threat to peace and security, compounded by spiraling youth unemployment rates, the youth bulge, porous borders, poverty, arms proliferation, weak governments, economic problems among other challenges. It is yet to be seen how Africans will unite to deal with this threat to security on the continent given the above mentioned problems. At the same time, one will assess the ramifications, advantages, and pitfalls of the youth bulge and foreign intervention to curb the spread of terrorism towards obtaining sustainable peace and security on the continent.

Protests in Burkina Faso, Ivory-Coast, Senegal, Mauretania, Guinea Bissau and Guinea Conakry (2011-2014): A Comparative Analysis of Mobilization, Grievances and Opportunities

Popular protests have toppled regimes in Burkina-Faso and Ivory Coast and exerted pressure on regimes in Senegal, Mauretania, Guinea Bissau and Guinea Conakry to embark on political and economic reforms. The paper seeks to find answers to why protests erupted in these countries and why some of the protests where nonviolent and others violent. The central theme of the paper is to identify theoretical and practical inferences, while using a comparative framework. The paper supports the grievance, political opportunities and resource mobilization arguments to explain why citizens protested in all these countries. Economic grievances in all the cases are rooted in corruption, income inequality, unemployment and the lack of opportunities. Political grievances connect people to exclusion from political power and a desire for democracy. To explain protests in the four cases, the dissertation draws on the literature of mobilization, repertoires of contention, social media, youth bulge, unemployment and regime type to test two grievance based hypothesis and one violence based hypothesis. The paper concludes with evidence that protests in all the cases are associated with socioeconomic and socio political grievances. There is also evidence that the nature of violence is largely caused by the function of regime and security force type.

The Prospects of Enhancing Food Security in Kenya through the Demographic Dividend

Kenya is starting to enter its window demographic dividend, under the assumption of declining fertility rates over the next several decades. The country has the opportunity to exploit the first demographic dividend by attracting and retaining youth in farming. However, studies show that Kenya is deriving very little demographic dividend in agriculture with an increasing proportion of the country’s working age population being inactive. The main objective of this paper is to theoretically examine the demographic dividend, and how this window of opportunity can be utilized to enhancing food security in Kenya. Specifically, it examines the relationship between population growth and increasing food security, with reference to theories against, supporting and neutral. It further, describes Kenya’s youth bulge, and how the bulge can be utilized to enhance food security. We also identify a number of mechanisms that can be applicable to propel the youth for food security in Kenya. The paper benefited immensely from secondary data sources and desk review for evidence

Fertility, Marriage, and Family Planning in Iran: Implications for Future Policy

Abstract The Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced a remarkable demographic transition over the last three decades. As a result of social, demographic and economic changes, Iran’s fertility declined from 7.0 births per woman in 1980 to around 1.8 to 2.0 in 2011 based on our estimation (McDonald et al. 2015). The initial rise and rapid fall of fertility accompanied by a decline of child mortality led to a post-revolutionary youth bulge in the age distribution that will lead to rapid ageing in the longer-term future. Others have argued that Iran’s fertility has fallen to much lower levels - as low as 1.5 births per woman (eg. Erfani 2013). Such low estimates led to the Government of Iran adopting a pronatalist policy with the aim of increasing fertility, although the components of the policy are still under discussion. Different views have been expressed on the role of family planning and other programs in meeting population policy goals in Iran in the future with some advocating the discontinuation of government assistance to family planning. This paper aims to review the trends and levels of fertility, marriage, and family planning and their implications for policy. Using various datasets and detailed parity-based measures of fertility, the dynamics of fertility regulation practiced by Iranian couples are investigated. Our findings suggest that contraceptive use stabilized before 2000 and postponement of the first child and wide birth intervals are the main contributors to the level of fertility. Therefore, instead of discontinuation of the family planning program, policy to sustain fertility at its present level or a little higher needs to focus upon improving the economic circumstances of young people so that they are able to make less constrained choices about family formation than is the case at present.

Demographic change and its social and political implications in the Middle East

This study examines the effect of the demographic trend on the breakdown of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. Several scholars have pointed out that the combination of youth’s disproportionate share of the total population, the “youth bulge,” and high unemployment throws a society into turmoil. The demographic change determines not only how human activities are conducted but also how a society embarks on a political transition, such as a revolution, a state breakdown, or a regime change.I conduct two levels of empirical analysis of the political implications of the demographic dynamics in the Middle East. First, the macro-level analysis is based on cross-sectional data over two decades. This analysis will clarify whether the youth population had a significant effect on the Arab uprisings. Second, the micro-level analysis uses survey data from the Arab Democracy Barometer wave III to examine whether there is a significant correlation between youth and participation in protest. This analytical approach integrates the macro level with the micro level in order to avoid an ecological inference.My empirical analysis finds evidence to support Jack Goldstone’s revolution theory: it is built on demographic changes accompanied by rising food prices. The hypothesis is tested by examining the interactive effect of youth bulge and the deteriorating economic situation in the two decades following the end of the Cold War. The empirical tests at both the macro and micro levels identify a statistically significant effect.

Paradigm Shift: Youth Engagement in the Conduct of the 2015 Elections in Nigeria

This paper examines youth engagement in the conduct of the 2015 general elections in Nigeria, against a backdrop of historical experiences. Discounting the doom youth theory of youth bulge, youth in crisis or lumpen youth culture, the article illustrates a paradigm shift in youth engagement in the conduct of elections. Youth engagement in the 2015 elections was more constructive than in prior elections. Within the context of dual motivation theory, the destructive engagement by youth in the prior elections was motivated by the need to change the outcome, whereas their constructive conduct in the 2015 elections was driven by duty to participate in public affairs in Nigeria. This change in political attitude is explained by a growing consciousness of the potential of young people to act as agents of change. This awareness arises through the aid of social media, coupled with the recent success story of the Arab Spring driven by youth, the inflammable repercussions of previous elections, and the high stakes the 2015 general elections held for Nigerian governance.

Rethinking the Youth Bulge and Violence

The dominance of a generation of combat age, high levels of education combined with high unemployment, failed cities, and the relatively long duration of the transitional period still constitute an appropriate atmosphere for the explosion of a new wave of youth violence in the Middle East. The author takes Egypt as a case study. Egypt witnessed an unprecedented spike in violence following the revolution of January 25, 2011. This article first examines the political violence through the lens of political demography, drawing partly on Henrik Urdal’s theses on the impact of demographic factors on the risk of political violence, but more broadly documents and analyses the trajectory of youth movements’ involvement with violence in relation to issues of employment, education and urbanisation.

Socialization of Tajik Students in Tomsk University Space: Looking for Models and Meaning

In the last ten years, the number of students from Tajikistan studying at Tomsk universities has been steadily increasing. Statistics of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation shows that this process is typical for a number of other Russian regions. Migrant students face the challenge of adaptation and enculturation in the host community. An important part of this process is getting a good command of the Russian language. Some of the graduates will stay in Tomsk or will move to other major cities of Siberia that attract migration processes and are the multimodal migration hosts. They will become Russian citizens, start their own families here. Treating these new Russian Asians not as migrants, but as a part of the civil society will strengthen the solidarity of the nation and will facilitate the solution of administrative problems. Successful experience of university graduates will help to switch the Youth Bulge phenomenon - the pressure of a large number of young people in Tajikistan on the socio-economic situation in the country of origin and in the host community - to a positive track. Those who will be unable to successfully fit into the host community may experience at first symbolic, and then physical ghettoization. Disappointment and frustration may encourage them to seek social justice through participation in criminal groups and radical religious organizations. Individual in-depth interviews, which are the primary method of gathering information in the framework of this research project, are considered in terms of the status and other attributes of the interaction between a respondent and an interviewer.

Ethno-political Organizations in the Middle East: When Do They Opt for Violence?

AbstractWhy do some ethno-political organizations resort to violence while others abstain? Are ethno-political organizations with a religious/Islamist ideology more violence-prone compared to non-religious ones? In addition to commonly cited factors such as grievances, political opportunities/constraints, resources, and organizational characteristics, I argue that the existence of youth bulges in a society also increases the probability of adopting violent strategies by ethno-political organizations. Frustrated young males under repressive and authoritarian regimes tend to be likely recruits for violent organizations. I use the Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior dataset, which includes 118 organizations in 16 countries of the Middle East and North Africa to test my hypotheses. The findings suggest that youth bulges, economic grievances, group fractionalization, external support, and state repression increase the probability of use of violent strategies by ethno-political organizations whereas religious ideology is insignificant. Youth bulges foster violence especially in autocratic countries.

Every Country Gets the Movement It Needs: Protests and Social Change in AfricaThe Square directed by Jehane Noujaim and produced by Noujaim Films, 2013. 95 minutes; in Arabic and English, with English subtitles.Boy Saloum La Révolte des Y’en a Marre directed by Audrey Gallet and produced by Christopher Nick and Victor Ede, 2013. 74 minutes; in French and Wolof, with

Since the end of 2010, the world has been captivated by a new wave of citizen mobilization. At this time, a wave of protests spread across the world— seemingly starting with the Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East—then leading to the Occupy Wall Street protests in the United States, demonstrations across Europe, and a wave of protests across subSaharan Africa. The DNA of protests, social movements, and grassroots mobilization are affected by and rooted in the social, political, and historical conditions within a country. These new protest movements are also influenced by the youth bulge: a demographic shift across Africa (among other countries of the global South), which has resulted in an increased youth population. In 2012, a whopping 70 percent of the population in Africa was thought to be under the age of 30. The confluence of these changes is clearly illustrated in the three films discussed throughout this essay. This review begins with The Square, a documentary film by Jehane Noujaim that documents ongoing political activism in Egypt from the start of the Egyptian revolution of 2011 in Tahrir Square through 2013. This essay also reviews French director and producer Audrey Gallet’s Boy Saloum La Revolte des Y’en a Marre (We’re fed up / Enough is enough), a documentary which provides insight into Senegal’s youth-led protest movement against the attempted constitutional coup d’etat by a two-term president and the population’s attempt to stand up to

A Demographic Peace? Youth Bulges and Other Population-Related Causes of Domestic Conflict

AbstractThe following article analyzes violent political conflicts. Starting from theoretical debates on the determinants of violent conflicts, it focuses on intrastate conflicts. The main explanatory factors which are analyzed from different perspectives are demographic factors. Not only the size of the population or the population density is relevant, but also the so-called youth bulge. Youth bulges, i.e. large cohorts of young people, are the main driving forces of war. Especially variants like male youth bulges are highly significant in the empirical analysis. The article uses different data sets for the analysis, like the Global Peace Index and the CONIS data. Various statistical methods are used in the analysis. The article also draws attention to intervening factors, which might intensify or lessen the impact of the youth bulge.

Youth Crises and Conventional Policing in Nigeria: A Political Economy Analysis

Most studies in social issues in this age of hyper-imperialism which is globalization or neo-liberalism see such phenomena from the point of view of eclecticism. In other words, they see issues one-sidedly neglecting their interconnections and their concatenations which dialectics always bring out in very clear focus. The same is very true of youth crisis resulting from youth bulge locally and internationally. In such partial focus on issues, clues to crises generating dynamics are papered over which have been the case of youth crises in Nigeria, Africa, the Third World and beyond. As a result of the lack of fundamentals in the analysis of youth crises or bulge the task of conventional policing becomes increasingly difficult if not impossible. Youth bulge is a product of global underdevelopment. It is the product of collaboration between the local agents of neo-liberalism (in this case Nigerian rentier or comprador bourgeoisie) and their international mentors, the advanced capitalist bourgeoisie of Europe, North America and Japan. It is a product of relative over population, relative to means of employment generated by the system, and not to the means of subsistence. The youth crises is equally a product of an abnormal state that has deviated from the dynamics of classical state formation based on the internal emergence of a dominant class but which structures in Nigeria have been attenuated by the external imposition of the state strengthening its abnormalities. It has created vampire-victim relations making Nigeria, Africa and indeed the Third World the victim of imperialism or the vampire. This study has found out that superfluous population is a creation of the type of a global political economy which has resulted in youth bulges here and there. It is a product of global criminal political economy of neo-liberalism. This economy of globalization has removed the state world-wide from social provisioning hindering the welfare state. In this process, the unemployed becomes criminalized making the task of conventional policing increasingly difficult.

Global Equity and Justice Issues for Young People During the First Three Decades of Life.

This chapter takes a global perspective on equity and justice during development from childhood into adulthood. Globally, the population of young people is booming with the most rapid growth among young people in the poorest countries. While already faced with significant issues related to development and thriving, this population boom also exacerbates equity and justice for these children. Given this urgent situation, this chapter builds from the large body of minority world research, as well as the emergent majority world research, to argue that in order to turn the youth bulge into a demographic dividend, researchers must utilize a positive development framing rather than the more dominant problem-focused framing in studying these issues. The structural challenges confronting young people growing up in contexts marked by poverty; weak systems and institutions, especially those serving education, health, and justice; weak political and governance systems; and continual conflict must also be addressed by global and national governmental bodies. This chapter will emphasize the strengths and opportunities of the majority world, highlighting some of the strong, emergent examples of programs that support and develop the strengths of young people. We conclude with a discussion of appropriate support required from the minority and majority worlds that would further strengthen young people globally and enable them to become leaders of a more just, equitable world.

Corruption and Political Stability: Does the Youth Bulge Matter?

Corruption and Political Stability: Does the Youth Bulge Matter?

Straining: Young Men Working through Waithood in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Young men in precarious situations of persistent un(der)employment in post-civil war Freetown, Sierra Leone are depicted in popular and policy debate as “stuck” economically or “dangerous” and prone to violence. In the present paper, by contrast, we draw on young men's explanations of their work and livelihood struggles as “straining.” We explore the logic of straining, its innovations and demands, and its geography across the city, especially where acts of straining interface with the prohibition and criminalisation of informal trading. We argue that straining innovates and endures because of (not despite) young men's marginalisation and limited autonomy and power. In this context, young men build forms of provisional agency and enact dynamic forms of waithood, in their strategies to earn a living to try to support their families and to negotiate a transition from youth to manhood. Drawing on this research, we argue for a more complex understanding of young men at work in Freetown, in particular, and of the “youth bulge,” in general, in African cities.

Youth in crisis in the Middle East and North Africa: a systematic literature review and focused landscape analysis.

Recent political and demographic factors have exposed the vulnerability of the youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This study aimed to elucidate the current needs, activities, stakeholders and solutions related to at-risk youth and young adults in the MENA region. A systematic literature review was conducted of the peer-reviewed and grey literature. This was complemented by an in-region landscape analysis involving key-informant interviews and focus group discussions. After extensive screening of 1160 unique articles, 275 articles were considered relevant to this study. Of these 275, 145 (52.7%) were related to health (64.8% of these related to mental health), 101 (36.7%) to livelihood, 87 (31.6%) to violence prevention and 68 (24.7%) to education. Important themes and challenges identified in the literature and discussions included the MENA region's growing youth bulge; youth unemployment; critical gender gaps; and the impact of conflict on livelihoods, education and health, especially mental health.

Implications of changing agri-food system structure for agricultural education and training in Sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose – African agri-food systems are undergoing major structural change in response to growing urbanization, rising incomes and shifting patterns of food consumption. The purpose of this paper is to explore four major dimensions of this surprisingly rapid structural shift in African food systems. Design/methodology/approach – This chapter synthesizes the six chapters and in addition discusses future implications for agricultural education and training (AET) in Africa. Findings – AET institutions face multiple pressures as a result of these ongoing changes. High fertility rates have produced a youth bulge that currently strains educational capacity at all levels and places huge pressures accommodating 700 million youth job market entrants over the coming 30 years. Research limitations/implications – Countries vary considerably in a number of socio-economic and political dimensions making it difficult to completely generalize on each and every issue. Cross-country comparison to the level of determining w...

The sources of social violence in Latin America

The study of social violence in Latin America has stood at the periphery of cross-national research despite the region being one of the most violent in the contemporary world. This article provides a comprehensive review of theories of crime and presents an empirical analysis of social violence in Latin America from 1980 to 2010. The literature often emphasizes one theoretical approach over others and existing explanations are seen as competitive rather than complementary. Yet, the empirical findings of this study support different explanations and illustrate how considering different theoretical approaches helps improve our knowledge on social violence phenomena. The results from different estimation methods reveal that youth bulges, female workforce, and post-conflict states are positively associated with social violence, as measured by homicide rates. The results also show that states’ efforts to strengthen judicial system capacity and increase school attendance can promote peace. Moreover, while drug producers and/or transit countries are not systematically related to social violence, money-laundering countries experience higher homicide rates, suggesting that not all dimensions of drug-markets increase violence. Whereas Latin America as a whole has experienced few episodes of civil wars in the past decades, the findings suggest that several factors affecting the onset of civil wars also influence other forms of non-political violence such as social violence. This echoes earlier calls in the literature on the necessity of bridging conflict and criminology research.