GLOBALIZATION:
Globalization is `the compression of the world and the intensification of
consciousness of the World as a whole' (Robertson, 1992: 8)
YOUTH:
The term youth refers to persons who are no longer children and not yet adults.
In a strictly legal sense, the term is typically applied to a person from the
time of their early teens until a point between the age of 16 and 21, after
which time the person is legally an adult. As an adult, they are endowed
privileges such as the right to vote and consume alcohol etc. The United
Nations, for example, defines youth as people between the ages of 15 and 24
years inclusive.
Defining youth as those between the ages of 15 and 24 is a widely accepted
statistical convention. It is much harder to specify a set age group when a
sociological definition of young people is employed. The period of transition
from childhood to adulthood varies greatly between societies and even within the
same society. This critical stage in the life cycle may begin as early as age 10
(for street children, for example) and may in some cases continue into the mid-
to late 30s.
YOUTH ARE A SIGNIFICANT GROUP IN THE WORLD:
Youth are a very significant group in the world. We are living in a youthful
world. The present report presents an overview of the global situation of young
people. Between 1995 and 2005, the global youth population, defined as persons
between 15 and 24 years of age, has grown from 1,025 million to 1,153 million.
Young people currently comprise 1.1 billion and 18 per cent of the world
population. Youth and children together, including all those aged 24 years and
younger, account for nearly 40 percent of the world's population. Of all youth
worldwide, 85 per cent live in developing countries, reflecting a small increase
since 1995.
Young people make up almost a fifth of the world’s population. Close to 85 per
cent of the 1.061 billion young men and women between the ages of 15 and 24 live
in developing countries; Asia accounts for the majority, with 60 percent of the
total, while another 15 percent call Africa home, and approximately 10 percent
reside in Latin America and the Caribbean. The remaining 15 per cent of youth
live in developed countries and regions. . The UN estimates that by 2025, the
number of young people living in the South will increase to 89.5 percent.
GLOBALIZATION AND YOUTH:
Globalization affects the youth and the whole society at large. Global
transformations that range from cultural, historical, technological and
demographic changes require youth to develop new skills and habits that are far
ahead of what the educational system now a day’s deliver can. Globalization has
opened up new opportunities for sustainable economic growth. Countries share
experiences in their achievements and they learn from one another's
difficulties. It has promoted a cross fertilization of ideas, cultural values
and aspirations, thus it has helped to connect youth not only to the rest of the
world but also among each other.
Young people in this globalized world are more capable at dealing with this
technology than we may ever be. Prayer, text and email all go hand in hand in
this new age. Prayers are shared through text messages so that all their friends
can pray – and do so globally. The whole thing of this new technological world
is that access globally is easier and more instant than ever before. There has
also been a huge growth in personalised websites designed by young people, in
which they have a platform to share to a global audience on their interests and
build a global network of contacts. United Nations reports that 85 percent of
global youth population lives in the third world countries and is expected to
rise to 89 percent by 2020.
Globalization, roughly defined as the global integration of economies and
societies, affects many aspects of young peoples' lives. Young people have an
ambiguous economic and cultural relationship with the globalizing world. They
are relatively adaptable and therefore perhaps best able to make use of the new
opportunities presented; they are the best-educated generation, particularly in
areas relating to new information and communication technology (ICT); they
benefit from economic growth; many travel around the globe for work, studies,
exchange projects and vacations; and the telephone and Internet enable them to
stay in touch with friends and relatives all over the world (Boswell and Crisp,
2004). On the other hand, many youth, especially in developing countries, have
been left out of the digitalization and modernization process and lack the
economic power to benefit from the opportunities globalization offers.
Four effects of globalization on the lives of young people are discussed; the
distribution of employment opportunities, migration, youth culture and
consumerism, and global citizenship and activism.
GLOBAL YOUTH CULTURE:
Defining the global youth culture is a massive thought. Culture is the ensemble
of practices – linguistic, stylistic, religious, etc – that together form a way
of being for a given social community.
It is not just the clothes that we wear, the songs we sing or the holidays that
we observe. Culture is the language through which we learn to read the world. It
is the collection of learned assumptions that we bring to the daily practice of
interpreting the meaning of our reality and ourselves.
In youth culture there are lots of sub-sections, sub-cultures, diversity. The
UK, which is part of the western aspect of globalization, is vastly different to
that of the non-western cultures, but there are still important elements to
consider, such as the tribal distinctions. Likes and dislikes, in music,
upbringing, friendships, hobbies, etc.
It has become common place to think of the world’s youth as that part of the
community who are most receptive, or, alternatively, susceptible to, foreign
cultural practices. If childhood means acceptance, and adulthood means
conservatism, youth means rebelliousness.
Youth are seen as the part of society that is most likely to engage in a process
of cultural borrowing that is disruptive of the reproduction of traditional
cultural practices, from modes of dress to language, aesthetics and ideologies.
From Japanese punk to Australian hip hop, youth subcultures are seen as being
implicitly rebellious, born as much from a desire to reject the generation that
went before them, as from identification with what they have become
YOUTH FACE DIFFICULTY ACCESSING EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT:
About 85 percent of the world's population of youth lives in developing
countries. Nearly half (45.9 percent) live in low-income countries, while
another third (34.1 percent) live in lower middle-income countries. The
remaining fifth (20 percent) of youth live in upper middle- and high-income
countries.
Approximately 238 million youth live in extreme poverty—that is, they live on
less than $1 a day; 462 million youth survive on less than $2 a day.
About 255 million young people live in the 19 countries with the largest poverty
gaps; 15 of these 19 countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Experts estimate that, in the 49 countries classified as having a high
proportion of undernourished people, 110 million youth live in hunger.
About 133 million youth in the world are illiterate.
Youth comprise 41 percent of the world's unemployed people.
GLOBALIZATION RESHAPING THE YOUTH WORLDWIDE:
There are many different kinds of globalization, including economic,
socio-cultural, and governance-related, that are increasing the
interconnectedness of the world's nations and peoples.
Free trade laws have increased the number of export-oriented, manufacturing
(EOM) industries placed by transnational corporations in developing countries,
where there is a plentiful supply of cheap labour. Poor young people, especially
women, are the largest group of workers in these EOMs. As they leave rural areas
in search of employment, poor young people often suffer from lax enforcement of
labour codes and even from human rights abuses.
Rather than focusing on agricultural output to meet local needs, the WTO and
governments encourage increased production for foreign markets. As local
agricultural activities decrease, in part due to declining support from the
government and the growth of large-scale agribusiness, farmers and farm workers,
including many youth, find their livelihood threatened. Importantly, local
agricultural activity is often swallowed up by large agribusiness.
IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ON WORLD’S YOUTH:
About 11.8 million young people are living with HIV or AIDS; 7.3 million of
those infected are young women. Youth amount to one-third of the total global
population living with HIV or AIDS.
On average 6,000 young people become infected HIV each day, most of them young
women. Young people account for half of all new cases of HIV infection
worldwide.
About 78 percent of all young people living with HIV or AIDS reside in
sub-Saharan Africa; 14 percent, in Asia and the Pacific.
The 2001 UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS noted, "Poverty,
underdevelopment and illiteracy are among the principal contributing factors to
the spread of HIV/AIDS".
WORLD YOUTH REPORT:
Globalization has brought about substantial changes in the job market to which
Young people, as newcomers, may be particularly vulnerable. New technologies
have replaced manual labour in a number of industries, mainly affecting
low-skill jobs in the manufacturing and service sectors. Even in China, which
has experienced remarkable economic growth, unemployment is rising owing to the
progressive shift from agriculture to less employment-intensive manufacturing
and service industries, the reform of State owned enterprises, and the
reorganization of the public sector.
Young people have always constituted a significant proportion of migrant
workers. In 2003, 48 per cent of the global population lived in urban areas, and
it is projected to rise to more than 50 per cent by 2007. In 2002, there were
175 million international migrants. However, relevant statistics suggest that an
estimated 26 million migrants, or around 15 per cent of the total, are youth.
Every day thousands of young people illegally try to pursue a life of fortune in
a rich country, often motivated by unrealistic information and high
expectations.
Global consumerism is another aspect of globalization that directly affects
youth and has a number of implications for youth cultures. Television programmes,
music videos and movies produced in Europe and North America comprise an
increasingly dominant share of entertainment media content around the world.
Young people tend to adopt and interpret global products in terms of their own
local cultures and experiences, thereby creating new hybrid cultural forms whose
meanings vary with local and national circumstances
Young people around the world show concern about the negative consequences of
globalization, such as unequal distribution of wealth and environmental
degradation. The anti-globalization movement has expanded all over the world and
comprises a heterogeneous group of non-governmental organizations, student
groups, political organizations and civil rights activists. The movement fights
for various issues such as global justice, fair trade, debt relief, and
sustainable development.
In order to address some of the issues related to migration of youth, young
people need to have viable alternatives to remain in their countries. This means
addressing root causes such as poverty, and by doing so, seeking to redress the
inequalities between rich and poor nations. It also requires that young people
are provided, through education and skills training, with the knowledge and
confidence to become successful participants in the labor markets of their own
countries.
Young people and the Millennium Development Goals:
Most of the MDGs relate to challenges young people are facing. Around 51 per
cent of the combined population of developing and least developed countries are
below the age of 25, and 20 per cent are 15 to 24 years of age. It is clear,
given such age demographics, that if the specific needs of young people are not
identified and addressed, the MDGs will not be met.
Five of the Goals may be identified as referring directly to youth because they
relate to issues primarily associated with young people, including educational
attainment, gender balance in education, improved maternal health, combating
HIV/AIDS and other diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, and decent
employment opportunities for youth.
CONCLUSION:
The challenge for policymakers and Governments is to support youth with
programmes and policies that provide them with ICT access and empower them to
take advantage of the opportunities and benefits offered by globalization, but
that also protect them from its negative consequences. Some of the issues
relevant to the lives of young people in this context, including the
distribution of employment opportunities, migration, global consumerism, and
participation in anti-globalization movements, should be examined.