Dubai: Almost half of the youth in the region regard the rising cost of living as their greatest challenge followed by unemployment. Gulf youth were more concerned about the rising cost of living than non-Gulf Arabs. Egypt, Lebanon and Bahrain youth were particularly worried about these issues.
While people will not regret the fall of dictatorial regimes, hard work and dealing with realities lie ahead, said Dr Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, Professor of Political Science at UAE University.
Similar processes
"Formidable problems lie in front of us all. Regimes before us in other parts of the world — Brazil, Indonesia — have gone through similar processes and they have come out on top. We expect more prosperous economies."
People are full of optimism that the future is brighter, says Dr Abdullah, and there is no reason why Egypt could not be the next Brazil of the Arab world come 2020.
Frustrations over unemployment and the cost of living played a role in the uprisings. "We've heard a lot about economic reform in the past decade but it wasn't happening in any radical way," said Paul Dyer, an expert on political economy of reform in the Middle East at the Dubai School of Government.
Dyer added that between 2002 and 2008, there was a relative boom in the Middle East where economies swelled and diversified but it didn't benefit a lot of young people with high levels of unemployment among them. Also fuelling their anger was the global economic downturn and "it was the young people who got hurt and found it hard to penetrate the labour market", he said.
Entrepreneurship
Also interesting in the survey is that more respondents want to work in the private sector and 51 per cent said they intend to start a business in the next five years.
Dyer offers an explanation that the job market is so bad right now that they feel they need to do it out of necessity. Entrepreneurship has been encouraged in the region but it's uncertain if youth will actually start businesses or if they are just responding to the current positive energy.
"You can't lump all countries together," cautions Dr Mark Rush, political science professor and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the American University of Sharjah. "If you look at Qatar, their economy is fine and unemployment is low. Then look at Egypt; they have 10 per cent — that's eight million — unemployment and that is the entire population of Libya."
