SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
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Commendable<br />
progress in education<br />
made Asia-Pacific<br />
an early achiever<br />
of the MDGs<br />
BOX 3.2:<br />
A bulge in youth<br />
The term ‘youth bulge’ was coined by a German<br />
social scientist, Gunnar Heinsohn, in the<br />
mid-1990s, but has gained greater currency in<br />
recent years. It refers to a significant increase<br />
in the number of adolescents and young adults<br />
as well as a rise in their share of the total population.<br />
Some scholars have described a youth<br />
bulge as occurring when 20 percent or more<br />
of a population is aged 15 to 24. It is also measured<br />
as the ratio of the population aged 15 to<br />
24 to the population aged 15 to 64.<br />
The youth bulge usually occurs about 20 years<br />
after the onset of fertility decline. In Asia-Pacific<br />
as a region, it took place about 30 years ago,<br />
when the share of youth in the total population<br />
reached a peak of 21 percent in 1985. It had<br />
declined to 16 percent in 2015, and is projected<br />
to fall further to 12 percent by 2050.<br />
The timing of the peak in the share of youth in<br />
a population differs widely among Asia-Pacific<br />
countries. In Japan and the Democratic<br />
People’s Republic of Korea, the youth bulge<br />
occurred in the 1960s, and in Singapore; Hong<br />
Kong, China (SAR) and the Republic of Korea<br />
in the 1970s. By contrast, in Afghanistan and<br />
Timor-Leste, 33 the shares have not yet reached<br />
their highest levels. Further, even though the<br />
largest share of youth occurred a few decades<br />
back in most Asia-Pacific countries, 21 out 37<br />
countries have yet to achieve the peak in terms<br />
of their numbers of youth.<br />
Source: Omoju and Abraham 2014, Huntington 1996, UN<br />
DESA 2015a.<br />
EDUCATION IS <strong>THE</strong> PATH<br />
TO <strong>THE</strong> <strong>FUTURE</strong><br />
Education embodies human capabilities and<br />
skills. It is a human right as well as an essential<br />
component of human development and a<br />
thriving economy. Investing in education helps<br />
countries build labour skills, and move towards<br />
producing more sophisticated and economically<br />
rewarding products and services. In the 2015<br />
World We Want survey conducted by the United<br />
Nations for the formulation of the Sustainable<br />
Development Goals, education was ranked as<br />
the number one area for development investment,<br />
not only in Asia-Pacific, but in the world as<br />
whole. 5 More than 8 million people voted for<br />
education as key to a future that is equitable,<br />
sustainable and prosperous. 6<br />
Encouraged by the Millennium Development<br />
Goals, Asia-Pacific countries made<br />
significant progress in strengthening education<br />
systems and getting more children, particularly<br />
girls, to school. In enrolment and gender parity<br />
in primary education, a majority of countries in<br />
the region were early achievers. Progress has been<br />
mixed when it comes to higher levels of education<br />
as well as retention of students, however.<br />
Disparities persist across subregions, and<br />
along the lines of gender, disability and location.<br />
Many children still do not make the transition<br />
from primary to secondary, or from secondary to<br />
tertiary education, leaving them poorly equipped<br />
to negotiate labour markets and lead successful,<br />
productive adult lives. Current education and<br />
training systems have been slow to adapt to<br />
changing demands of increasingly dynamic<br />
economies, complicating the transition of young<br />
people from school to work. Children and youth<br />
need to not only go to school and remain there,<br />
but also to emerge with both the knowledge and<br />
the skills to thrive in today’s world.<br />
This is not an easy process in a region with<br />
1.7 billion people under age 25. Education systems<br />
are under tremendous pressure to expand.<br />
But they need to rise to this challenge in order<br />
to maximize the demographic dividend.<br />
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