A perspective on the impact of COVID-19 on youth
Ever since the beginning of the Earth, mortality has been an inevitable part of life which also was a major component of population change until the beginning of the modern world. In the early centuries, pandemics were the major reason for high morbidity and mortality rates. According to the Epidemiological Transition Theory presented by Abdel Omran(1971), the primary cause of death shifts from the age of pestilence to the age of degenerative and man-made diseases with the life expectancy at birth increasing parallelly. As mentioned by Omran, the contemporary world is experiencing the third stage of the epidemiological transition which has a relatively low mortality rate with the major cause of death being cardiovascular disease and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
However, in the 21st century, global pandemics are still present with high mortality rates. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a pandemic is a global outbreak of disease that is ensued when a new virus develops to infect people and may spread between people sustainably. The most recent outbreak of such a global pandemic is the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020. Coronaviruses are common in people and different species of animals such as bats, cats, and cattle. Animal coronavirus can infect people rarely, and then spread among people like it did with MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and now the new virus SARS-CoV-2 which is also known as COVID-19. According to the World Health Organization, by the 21st March 2020, the virus had spread globally with more than 500,000 cases and it has rapidly increased to more than 20 million confirmed cases with 800,000 plus deaths by the middle of August. It is known that COVID-19 can infect individuals of all ages. However, WHO has cautioned that older persons and anyone with pre-existing medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and heart diseases appear to be more vulnerable to severe illnesses. Even though youth are not as vulnerable as the elderly, youth is a critical part of the active plan to limit the virus’s spread and its impact on public health, society, and the economy at large. It is important to identify that even though youth are less vulnerable to COVID-19 disease, they are much more vulnerable to the negative effects of the pandemic in many aspects. Such effects could be identified under few criteria namely economic, socio-demographic, and health impacts.
Already, the global COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe economic and labour market shocks. With an estimated rise between 5.3 and 24.7 million in the number of those unemployed globally, the impact on youth employment is likely to be severe given that youth (15–24) are already 3 times more likely to be unemployed than adults. Furthermore, COVID-19-related shocks to the labour market are likely to impact the quality of jobs for young people, be it in the form of zero-hour contracts, informal employment, etc. According to a rapid survey conducted by Youth Co:Lab on 410 young entrepreneurs across 18 countries, 9 out of 10 young entrepreneurs in the Asia Pacific reports that coronavirus has negatively impacted their businesses.
The pandemic has impacted on education as well. According to UNESCO, 165 countries have so far (as of March 27) implemented nationwide closures of educational institutions, and several more have implemented localized ones, in total affecting 1.52 billion of children and youth. The situation can be expected to have severe consequences in terms of interrupting learning, compromising nutrition, and elevating drop-out rates. In particular, the closures are disproportionately impacting disadvantaged and underprivileged children and youth who have fewer educational opportunities outside of school, a lack of access to remote learning tools, and the Internet and rely on free or discounted school meals for healthy nutrition.
Young migrants are more vulnerable to the impacts of the pandemic. Given 70 percent of all international migrants are below 30 years of age globally and in 2019, 38 million international migrants were below the age of 20 years. Increased risk of sexual exploitation, risks of labour exploitation, issues related to education are some negative effects of the COVID-19 on the migrant youth. With the economic crisis more severe than that of the economic crisis in 2009, reasons such as income loss and challenges in living conditions may drive migrants to return to home countries. According to the World Bank, at the national level, remittance to Sri Lanka is expected to decline by 19 percent in 2020.
However, when going through the existing literature, it is found that limited attention is given to the impact on such pandemics on the youth population. It is important to have policies and programmes to uplift the youth wellbeing in every aspect to have a healthy young population. Thus, improving research and data on the matter, implementing both short and long term programmes to reduce the vulnerabilities and inequalities, as well as strengthening the national level opportunities for return migrants would need more attention not only by the non-governmental organizations but also by the government institutes.
