Youth, Migration and Development:A New Lens for Critical Times

On the other hand, most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and some countries in Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean have the potential to reap a demographic dividend: people of working age (25–64) have become the largest share of the total population, most often due to decreasing fertility rates. [...] Exploring the Nexus between Youth Migration and Development By exploring the link between youth migration and development, this scoping paper creates a space for a new conversation, one that focuses on the active role that young migrants play in the realization of sustainable development and on how sustainable development can in turn support the potential of youth migration. [...] Eighty-one percent of North American and Western European students, 37 percent of students from East Asia and the Pacific, and 27 percent of students from the Arab states were pursuing their higher education within their respective regions in 2018, while 28 percent of South and West Asian students migrated to study in the East Asia and Pacific region. [...] Meanwhile, data show that the 25–34 age group represents the largest proportion of the total migrant population in three of the main destination countries in the European Union: Germany (29 percent), Spain (28 percent), and France (26 percent).14 While migrant stocks do not provide evidence of the age at which people migrate, the fact that the African migrant population is “younger” than the migra. [...] This coincides with the strict labor market reforms adopted during the 2010s to halt the inflow of foreign workers and push for the“Saudization” of the workforce,21 reforms that seem to have acted to the detriment of the young migrant population.