Large youth population plus high unemployment – challenges facing ENP-South countries

This article presents selected statistics and analyses on the situation of young adults under the age of 25 for nine Mediterranean countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP-South countries). It provides an overview of demographic trends, the labour market situation and education in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia. The Arab Spring movements at the end of 2010 highlighted wide dissatisfaction, including issues of limited employment perspectives for educated but disaffected young persons and unequal opportunities.

The countries of the ENP-South region are generally more ‘youthful' than their counterparts in the European Union; in a majority of the ENP-South countries about one half of the population was under the age of 25 in 2011 compared to a little over one quarter (27.8%) in the EU-28. Young people aged between 15 and 24 (the period that covers the transition from dependent childhood to independent adulthood) accounted for about one in every five persons in many of the ENP-South countries compared with about one in every eight in the European Union in 2011.