If you want to feel optimistic about the state of things for
unemployed, disengaged, and dissatisfied youths in America, here’s a
way. Spin a globe. Stop it with your finger. If you touch land, the
overwhelming odds are that the young people in that country are doing
much worse.
There are 1.2 billion people between 15 and 24 in the world, according to the International Youth Foundation‘s new Opportunity for Action
paper. Although many of their prospects are rising, they are emerging
from conditions of widespread poverty and lack of access to the most
important means of economic mobility: education. In the Middle East and
North Africa, youth unemployment has been stuck above 20 percent for the
last two decades. And in the parts of the world where youth
unemployment has been low, such as south and east Asia, young people are
overwhelmingly employed in the agriculture sector, which leaves them
vulnerable to poverty.
The report is a crackerjack box of
interesting facts — e.g.: the probability that a 15-year-old Russian
male will die before he is 60 is higher than 40 percent, the highest in
Europe; among women 15 to 24 years old, only 15 percent are working in
the Middle East — but some of the most surprising stats are the closest
to home.
