Consequences of Youth Bulge in Pakistan

Abstract

The present study was designed to explore the effects of Youth Bulge in Pakistan. Youth bulge” emerges at population dividend pyramid in which this part of the population cannot achieve their goal, consequently they have to adopt retreatism mode of adaptation to get their target. It is often due to a stage of development where a country achieves success in reducing infant mortality but mothers still have a high fertility rate. The result is that a large share of the population is comprised of children and young adults, and today’s children are tomorrow’s young adults. Youth often plays a prominent role in political violence and the existence of a “youth bulge” has been associated with times of political crisis. The population pyramid of Pakistan represents a large youth proportion and our government is not using that youth in positive way and not providing them opportunity for development, this situation creates frustration in youth that leads them towards conflict, unrest and violence. This study was focused on the opportunity and motives of the youth bulge situation in Pakistan in the lens of youth bulge theory. Moreover, it gives some suggestions to utilize youth in the development activities and avoid youth from criminal activities in Pakistan. The present research was conducted in the metropolitan entities of Punjab, Pakistan. A sample of 300 respondents was taken from three randomly selected metropolitan entities (Faisalabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi) of Punjab Province of Pakistan. Information regarding demography, household, locality and other socio-cultural variables related to causes and effects of youth bulge in the state was collected through a well structured interview schedule. Chi-Square, Gamma test and multiple linear regressions were applied to measure the influence of various independent variables on the response variable.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p2216