Looking Ahead at 2025

Navigating the Youth Bulge

Date: January 3, 2025

Zafarullah Khan
Social policy expert and rights advocate

Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world. More than 60 percent of its citizens, or ‘consumers of governance’ are young men and women, yet not one out of 136 districts in Pakistan offers quality education, sports, entertainment, or gainful youth engagement. Our youth may win Olympic gold despite all odds, but come home to internet shutdowns and socio-economic strangulation. 2025 will witness anger and frustration among young people, if this trend continues. 

Our silver-haired politicians and policymakers need to review the results of Pakistan’s first-ever Digital Census 2023, that shows only 26 percent are youth (aged 10-29 years) in definitional terms. A staggering 41 percent fall in the age bracket of 0-10 years. Consider a scenario from disaster management: our system can barely manage 100,000 cusecs of water, and there are an additional 200,000 cusecs making their way in. How are we going to manage the expectations and needs of such a demography in disaster-prone Pakistan? 

Young people are facing complex and challenging situations like unemployment, a mafia-ridden economy, lack of access to credit or funding for start-ups, and a deeper lack of opportunities in most fields. Amid this ongoing economic downturn, some tried to integrate themselves in the global digital economy, but lost as a result of slowed down internet and frequent disruptions. 2025 may well see an intensified brain drain among digital entrepreneurs, if this persists. Those unable to migrate are facing down daily challenges of infrastructural deficits, with an uptick in substance abuse and mental health issues becoming more common.

The country’s governance (both institutions and resources allocation), policy formulation structures and mechanisms are archaic, and set up for colonial control. Young people obtain the right to vote at 18, but are forced to sign an affidavit to stay away from politics in universities. For those outside formal schooling, there is no avenue of democratic civic education. Student unions are banned and civic spaces have shrunk, even as we witness political chaos. Local government systems introduced the concept of youth councilors, but as a functioning participatory system, this is non-functional in most parts of the country.

If 2025 has to be any different for an overwhelmingly young country, we need urgent investments in all spheres relevant to young people. Youth have to be engaged in both rural and urban contexts, so that their creative energies can contribute towards a future of progress.