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Figure 1a
Male unemployment rates by age, 1994
Figure 1b
Female unemployment rates by age, 1994
Notes:
1) For France, data refer to 1993.
2) For the Netherlands, data refer to 1992.
3) For Indonesia, teenagers are defined as those aged 10-19.
4 )For Norway, Spain, Sweden and the USA, teenagers are defined as those aged 16-19.
5) For Portugal, teenagers are defined as those aged 12-19.
6) For Romania, teenagers are defined as those aged 14-19.
Source: ILO-comparable annual employment and unemployment estimates, ILO, Geneva, 1996
6.0 Youth in Labour Markets
We now turn to a series of statistics (Tables 1 and 2) that describe the extent to which the young are jobless by country and over time. First, changes in the relative size of the youth population aged 15-24 compared with the older age group 25-54 are reported (Table 1). The size of the youth population aged 15-24 years relative to the numbers aged 25-64 has fallen in all developed countries and most developing countries - the main exceptions are Niger, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Pakistan. The youth population is increasing in most of the transition economies.
From Table 1 it can be observed that: (1) the youth participation rates are higher in developed countries than in developing countries; (2) the participation rates for young men have declined in almost all countries; and (3) they have declined for women aged 15-19 in most countries, but increased for the older age group of 20-24 year old for most countries, except for the eastern European countries where the rates have declined.
An examination of overall unemployment rates (with minimum and maximum ages variously defined) and by gender presents a mixed picture (Table 2). Overall rates vary from as high as 38.8 per cent in Macedonia to as low as 0.4 per cent in Uzbekistan. This illustrates the difficulty of interpreting the unemployment rate in developing and transition economies. For example, in transition economies it is unclear whether a low unemployment rate is a signal of positive factors - the economy is working well at full-employment - or of negative factors - little adjustment has been made to a market economy. Similarly, in many less developed countries, only the better educated can afford to be unemployed. Hence, in those countries, unemployment rates for the more educated are above those of the least educated. In the majority of countries reported in Table 2, female unemployment rates are higher than male rates (e.g. Botswana, Jamaica, Chile, Belgium and Spain), while in a few others, the male rates are higher (e.g. El Salvador, Algeria, Puerto Rico, UK, Sweden and Australia).
Data on current unemployment rates across countries for the 15-24 and 25+ age groups reveals that the youth unemployment rates are approximately twice as high as adult unemployment rates across both developed and developing countries. In a number of developing countries the ratio is considerably higher (Egypt, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Indonesia, Republic of Korea and Sri Lanka). The ratio is also above two in several southern European countries (Greece, Italy and Turkey), as well as in a number of Eastern European countries (e.g. Bulgaria, Estonia, Romania and Slovenia).
An examination of male and female unemployment rates for our two age groups shows that the unemployment rates for young men aged 15-24 are lower than the equivalent rates for young women in virtually all of the developing countries and transition economies (Table 2). The pattern is more mixed in the developed world - male youth rates are higher in the English speaking countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the US) plus Japan, Sweden and Turkey, but lower in countries such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Youth unemployment rates are significantly higher in the 1990s than they were in the 1980s in a number of countries. Even where they have not increased significantly they have generally remained high (e.g. Spain at 36 per cent and Italy 32 per cent). The rate has increased markedly in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Canada,Italy, France, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand but declined sharply in Chile, the Netherlands and Portugal.
The average annual changes in the proportion of 20-24 year olds in higher education between 1990 and 1995 show a rise. It is likely that this is in part a labour supply response on the part of the young to the lack of unskilled job opportunities, as well as to the worldwide increase in the demand for the skills. A lack of jobs causes young people to defer their entry into the world of work. The transition from school to work appears to be sensitive to aggregate economic conditions, with the employment and unemployment of youths highly dependent on the rate of unemployment, particularly for younger youths and for those out of school (see Blanchflower and Freeman, 1996b and OECD, 1996).
7.0 Main determinants of fluctuations in youth unemployment and why do they
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