Jasmine, Mideast and Beyond

The wave of the Jasmine Revolution seems to have lost its momentum. With Colonel Gaddafi's army poised to slaughter its own people and demonstrators elsewhere in the region being met with bullets and teargas, is the Arab uprising near its end?

Don't be fooled. The protesters may return home to lick their wounds but the mix of combustibles that fuelled the Middle East fire are still smoldering. At its core, the uprising from Tunis to Sana is a youth revolt and it can be sparked elsewhere in the world, whether the local government is run by monarchs, generals or kleptocratic elected officials.

Observers have identified decades of oppressive rule and growing economic disparity as the main factors behind the Arab upheaval. One aspect that has not received adequate attention is the anger of the region's youth populations, educated and unemployed, most of whom have known only one ruler in their lifetimes. Products of high fertility rates and low investment in education and job creation, these young adults fear ending their lives as poor, unmarried and marginalised in their own societies. They demand democracy in order to take charge of their lives and to build a future, but what they crave most is the dignity of employment and a normal family life.

Population growth in the Arab region followed by rise in life expectancy has created a youth bulge, not unlike in India. The total number of youth (those between the ages of 15 and 24) has grown nearly two and half times in 30 years, with 60% of Arabs aged between 15 and 59 years. (In India, the same demographic accounts for 56.9%.)

This young workforce and low dependency rate would have been welcomed as a "demographic dividend", as it is in India. In theory, young workers could have supplied the world's labour force and - with only 6% of the population over 60 - increased the savings rate. But the region's failure to generate employment and offer education and skill-sets matching jobs has instead created a demographic disaster. The region's single largest unemployed group comprises educated youth below 25, whom a recent ILO report on unemployment called a "lost generation".

This lost generation is now out in force on the Arab street hoping to reclaim its future. Angry over massive corruption, bitter about repression, arbitrary arrests, torture and censorship, they demand the ouster of their rulers. The protesters' deep hurt about their hopeless future and lack of dignity has perhaps been the most striking new feature of the youth revolt. At Cairo's Tahrir Square, protesters mixed their call for Mubarak's fall with chants of "We want to get married". This reveals the painful social consequence of prolonged joblessness. Without steady employment, millions of adults are forced to remain single and unable to raise a family. Given the conservative nature of Arab society, forced bachelorhood not only generates great frustration but also has the effect of marginalising an individual. The frustration of youth has only been intensified by the exposure they have had since the 1990s to satellite television and the different lifestyle portrayed in Turkish soaps and Bollywood movies.

The sight of a pro-democratic surge shaking authoritarian regimes in the Arab world, or China showing nervousness about the Jasmine Revolution, should not prompt smug satisfaction. It is not only autocratic countries that should fear the wrath of jobless youth. Last week, democratic Portugal witnessed a massive demonstration by tens of thousands of young graduates fed up of living on a 500-euro unemployment dole (of Portugal's 11.2% unemployed, half are under 35). A YouTube song that has become the battle hymn for Portuguese youth demonstrating in the streets strikes a similar theme as that of Cairo's before it: it fumes about being a generation living in "Daddy's home", unable to marry or raise a family.

With India's high growth rate and its democratic safety-valves, not to mention the social cushion provided by family networks, the young jobless in Delhi or Mumbai may behave differently. But unless an all-out effort is made to raise the literacy rate, provide training to prepare India's youth for 21st century jobs and create these jobs at a faster pace, India's own 'demographic dividend' might turn sour. The Arab revolt has sounded a clear warning about a demographic disaster.