Labor Market Uncertainties for Youth and Young Adults: An International Perspective

Abstract

A crisis for youth labor market conditions has been building globally for more than two decades, reflected in the persistently high rates of youth unemployment around the world, which is about three times as high as that for adults. About one in five young people are not in education, employment, or training, and a large share of young adults are working in the informal economy or in precarious conditions. This volume includes a collection of thirteen articles that examine the causes, patterns, and consequences of labor market uncertainties for youth and young adults in Europe, Latin/South America, the United States, and Asia, as well as a concluding article. They reveal vast inequalities among young people, with those having the least education and lowest skills, females, those with low family socioeconomic status (SES), ethnic minorities, and migrants being the most vulnerable. In this introduction, we describe the global trends and regional variation in labor market conditions for young people, explicate the importance of integrating young people into labor markets, and summarize the findings and policy implications of these articles.