South Africa’s youth are a generation lost under democracy – study

• But what is the real state of young South Africans – defined as people below the age of 34 – after 30 years of democracy?
• My recent research paper tracing 30 years of analysing youth marginalisation has found that youth in South Africa, who make up 34.3% of the population, have not fared well under democracy.

Measuring marginalisation

• The survey recorded indicators like unemployment and level of education, as well as subjective views like feelings of alienation (not belonging in society).
• The results were arranged on a scale of how far some young people had been pushed to the margins of society.
• Comparing data from the 1992 and 2018 indices of youth marginalisation, the same proportion (5%) is clearly “lost” – scoring off the chart on virtually every indicator.
• In terms of how much potential South Africa has squandered, they represent an entire generation of opportunity lost to the country.

Marginalised but not lost

• As ever, they demonstrated their instrumental value to the adults controlling violence on various sides.
• Those same adults and the media spoke of a “lost generation” – specifically, black, male, urban youth.

Marginalisation over time

• In 1993, after first presenting to assembled youth organisations in 1992, we released the first iteration of the marginalisation index, Growing up Tough.
• Despite the belief of our church sponsors that no-one is ever truly “lost”, that became the central category of the index.
• In all, 5% of respondents scored high on all, or most, of the indicators in the 12 dimensions.
• Most of the items in the index were later used by the Gauteng City Region Observatory in its early Quality of Life survey, allowing analysis of marginalisation across the entire Gauteng province population.
• Only 0.3% of white youth (and 0.5% of Indian youth) showed signs of high marginalisation.

David Everatt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.