New study on educated unemployed youth

Updated on: Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Oxford University is looking out to begin a new study shortly on how young educated people who are unemployed become politicised in different ways - either through violent struggle or as reformers working for a more equal society.

The project is one of the first to compare in depth the experiences from the youths of northern states of India where unemployment is on the rampant, besides taking samples across different countries of the young who are educated and yet unemployed.

The project focuses on three countries particularly affected by youth unemployment: northern India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, but the findings will have wider global relevance. Youth unemployment is now a critical problem across the world. It recently propelled uprisings in the Arab world, contributed to sectarian violence in India, and has now reached record highs in the UK.

Dr Jeffrey, a University Lecturer in Human Geography and author of the book Timepass (published in 2011), explains: ‘Young people have invested time and money in their education and yet find there are very few salaried jobs for them. This has left them feeling short-changed and frustrated and this is a big problem across the world. Educational levels have risen rapidly but there is a big gap between their aspirations and the reality of the current jobs market.

Dr Craig Jeffrey 'Scholars know surprisingly little about the resulting political actions taken by the educated young who have not had their aspirations met. These questions have been largely the subject of journalistic conjecture. We want to find out from our survey whether they feel globalisation is changing their lives for the better; find out whether their political views change when they leave school; and ask them why their protest groups are not longer lasting. We will move beyond media stereotypes of youthfor example, as "heroes" or "villains" and publicise the varied and changing roles played by educated unemployed young people.'

Youth responses to unemployment have varied across south Asia. According to previous research conducted by Dr Jeffrey, richer, higher caste young men have tended to do better than low castes and women in the jobs market. This has resulted in powerful pides in the population of disenfranchised poorer youth in northern parts of India. Higher caste youths have tended to use their social connections to become brokers, receiving patronage from client networks. Meanwhile, poorer, lower caste men and women have sometimes taken on the role of 'reformer', helping the poor in negotiations with the government or many of them have set up NGOs.

Northern India, Nepal and Sri Lanka were chosen for the study because they each have major problems in providing work that suits the skills and qualifications of their unemployed. They also have a 'youth bulge' in their population of mainly young men. While the jobs market in the public sector has shrunk in these countries, the private sector has not filled the gap in providing secure, salaried job opportunities. There are political differences too between the three countries: India is a democracy where people are free to protest; Sri Lanka has a history of more authoritarian forms of government; while Nepal only broke from monarchic rule recently, in 2006.

New study on educated unemployed youth

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