Long speeches and screeds about the need for youth-centric policies have become common in the public sphere, but while politicians around the world claim to put the youth front and centre in their policymaking, an objective overview of the situation in most countries will reveal the opposite is true. While the factors at play differ from country to country, a few issues are universal. Most significantly, young people are also usually 'poor' – they are usually students or in the early stages of their careers, meaning that only a handful of young people have earned significant accumulated wealth.
Though most mainstream politicians acknowledge the importance of youth-centric policies, their first priority is usually to win reelection, which requires money for campaigning. Their legislative priorities are thus often in the interest of their donors, most of whom are older. Populist leaders may appeal to disaffected voters, including young people, but once elected, many have shown a tendency for authoritarian, anti-people policies that are actually meant to gain the favour of the elite.
When such policies do 'work', as they do achieve statistical successes such as economic growth and improvements in other indicators, but below the headline figures, the youth are often left behind. This is why, in many countries, the pace of income and wealth growth for older people is significantly higher than for young people. When additional pressures are placed on the youth, such situations can become explosive – Bangladesh is a recent example, while the Arab Spring and even the Iranian Revolution were mostly driven by students and young people who felt forgotten or oppressed by their rulers.
Though not quite on the edge yet, the youth of Pakistan could also explode if corrective measures are not rolled out in time. For a start, Pakistan needs to aggressively create jobs to address unemployment, and austerity policies that are functionally anti-youth must also be reviewed. While not total solutions, they are the clearest illustrations that the government cares about young people.
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