Anna Barford at The Conversation: Jobs, of which 30% were reserved for independence war veterans and their relatives, are highly sought after. The rate of youth unemployment in Bangladesh is three times higher than the national average and, according to a survey from 2013, around a fifth of students want to work in the public sector.
But the issue of youth unemployment and underemployment is by no means exclusive to Bangladesh. In fact, young people in many low-income countries find decent work hard to come by. A mere one-in-five people aged between 25 and 29 in these countries have a secure job that lasts longer than a year, with a paying employer and a contract.
Many young people instead patch together several activities to make a living or end up migrating for work. Some take on debt or badly paid and sometimes dangerous jobs. Others take up gambling in the hope of generating an income.
The overriding issue in many lower-income countries is that there simply aren’t enough jobs for the number of young people that want them. In stark contrast to wealthy countries where low birth rates and long life expectancy combine to create an ageing population, many middle and low-income countries have large and sometimes growing youth populations.
At the same time, valuable sources of employment in lower-income countries have been lost. This can, in part, be traced back to the 1980s and 1990s when loans and other forms of financing were provided to low-income countries on the condition that they make structural economic reforms.
These reforms have included liberalizing trade, reforming taxes and public investment, reducing government spending, and introducing wage restraints and employment flexibility. They have resulted in job losses and layoffs in many countries, including from the public sector.
Permanent contracts and reliable hours of work are also relatively rare. More than half of all workers globally were in informal employment in 2024, which means they are not covered by national labour legislation and social protection. And research has found that young workers experience higher levels of informality than their older counterparts.
Despite improvements in educational attainment in lower-income countries, young people often struggle to enter the labor market. Within this context, many are forced to flee their country altogether.
