Washington — South Asia’s youth bulge is a ticking time bomb. A demographic dividend looms, but millions of young people lack the job skills to cash in, choking the region’s economic potential.
With a population of 1.9 billion, South Asia is home to almost half of the world’s youth population. Every day, nearly 100,000 young people enter the job market, making it the largest youth labor force globally.
However, experts have been warning about the lack of education and skills among South Asia’s youth for years. A 2019 UNICEF study revealed that if nothing changes, more than half of the region’s youth risk not finding decent jobs by 2030.
On International Youth Day, the spotlight is on South Asia’s skills-gap crisis. While some countries in the region have made progress in recent years, UNICEF’s latest figures paint a concerning picture. Ninety-three million children and adolescents in South Asia are out of school, and almost 60% of them cannot read by the age of 10. Additionally, nearly a third of the youth are not in any form of education, employment, or training, known as NEET.
Mads Sorensen, UNICEF’s chief adolescent advisor for South Asia, highlighted the issue of the quality of education in the region. Many teachers still use old methods, and schools lack basic tools such as computers. As a result, students are not taught the digital skills necessary to thrive in the modern workplace.
Sorensen stated, “Young people are not acquiring the skills that are highly sought after by the labor market, especially in the private sector.” This skills deficit extends beyond K-12 education, as higher education enrollment in South Asia has tripled in the past two decades. However, the quality of college education remains uneven, and many graduates find that their degrees do not prepare them for today’s job market.
One such example is Ariful Islam, a recent graduate with a business administration degree, who now helps his father in their sweets shop in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Despite attending multiple job interviews, he was unable to secure a job that matched his qualifications. His father, Akram Khan, had invested nearly $13,000 in his education, and now he has had to quit his job to start a business to supplement the family’s income. Khan expressed his disappointment, saying, “I spent so much money to educate my son, but now he is not getting a job according to his qualifications. As a father, I feel bad.”
Zahirul Haque, a 2022 graduate in public administration, has also faced challenges in finding employment. The controversial quota system in Bangladesh, which favors Liberation War veterans and their offspring, has hindered his chances of securing a government job. After two years of unsuccessful attempts, he settled for a low-paying job with a local non-governmental organization. Haque remains optimistic, saying, “It was a little disappointing, but I haven’t given up hope for a better job.”
Despite the challenges, there is some good news. Bangladesh, once one of the poorest countries in Asia, has made significant economic progress in recent decades and is on track to become a middle-income country by 2026. Collectively, South Asia is expected to be the fastest-growing emerging market this year, according to the World Bank. The International Labour Organization (ILO) also reported that South Asia’s youth unemployment rate fell to a 15-year low of 15.1% last year. However, this still remains the highest in the Asia Pacific region, and the number of women excluded from the labor market in South Asia is also a cause for concern, with over 42% not working or learning.
While countries like Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka have made progress in narrowing the skills gap, the most populous nations in the region, including India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, are lagging behind. The situation is even more dire for young women, with one in four girls in South Asia getting married before the age of 18, which hinders their education and career opportunities. In Pakistan, where only 13% of the population is enrolled in higher education, students have also raised concerns about outdated curriculums that do not incorporate the emerging trends of the 21st century.
Noor Ul Huda, an English major at a public university in Islamabad, shared her experience, saying, “The
