Young people and future generations will bear the brunt of our actions and inactions. Their role in creating a better, more equitable, and more sustainable future is not just significant, but indispensable. The Summit of the Future is committed to empowering young people by cultivating a nurturing environment that allows youth and future generations to fully realise their dreams and ambitions. The Pact for the Future, inclusive of the Declaration on Future Generations, bolsters this endeavour. To support this effort, this chapter draws on existing OECD research on the needs and rights of young people and the importance of adequate labour, social and education policies. It also emphasises the significance of intergenerational justice provides targeted analysis and recommendations to foster it.
OECD Contributions to the 2030 Agenda and Beyond
6. Empowering youth for a more equitable and sustainable future
Abstract
Intergenerational justice (IJ) is deeply embedded in the concept of sustainable development and is a fundamental principle underlying the SDGs. It describes relations among contemporary (living) generations, such as between children/young people and their parents, or between younger and older generations. It also implies an obligation for contemporary generations to future generations so that “the pursuit of welfare by the current generation does not diminish the opportunities for a good and decent life for succeeding generations” (United Nations, 2013[1]). The United Nations are therefore seeking to commit, in the anticipated Pact for the Future, to invest in social services for young people so they can reach their full potential (Action 32), promote equal opportunities for all young people, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized, protect them from violence, and foster social inclusion and integration (Action 33), and to strengthen meaningful youth participation at the national (Action 34) and international (Action 35) level.
Following the concept of IJ, this chapter presents the importance of addressing the needs and rights of youth and future generations in sustainable development, highlighting the relevance of generating decent and quality employment for young people, adapting social protection systems and adopting policies that support young people, as well as tracking youth education outcomes. Another key theme that featured in this chapter regards the promotion of youth participation in decision and policymaking across all levels and government sectors, in line with IJ principles.
6.1. Addressing the needs and rights of youth and future generations
Across our world, millions of children and young people are deprived of the conditions they need to reach their full potential. If current trends persist, by 2030 around 84 million children will be out of school, and of those in school over 300 million will be unable to read and write (United Nations, 2023[2]). Investing in better opportunities for young people is an investment in the future. Engaging young people in the labour market and society is not just about their individual economic success and well-being – it is also about driving overall economic growth and fostering social cohesion. By enhancing their skills and boosting employment opportunities, young people have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and future career prospects, and drive future economic growth for the whole of society.
6.1.1. Generating decent and quality employment for young people
In many countries, the gap between young people’s aspirations and the reality of the labour market remains wide. The challenge is particularly daunting in developing countries where high labour market informality and weak enforcement of labour standards force many young people to take low-paid, low-quality jobs. Yet, these young people aspire for high-skilled, wage jobs (OECD, 2017[3]). Young people are often the first ones to lose their jobs during economic downturns (OECD, 2021[4]), and they can face significant income volatility during their transition into adulthood due to fluctuating earning patterns, limited savings and, depending on the country, lack of access to government support (OECD, 2024[5]). Rising housing costs and inequalities in support from parents also exacerbate young people’s challenges in achieving financial autonomy (Cournède and Plouin, 2022[6]). Moreover, young people in vulnerable and disadvantaged circumstances often accumulate a multitude of challenges in socio-economic conditions, education, employment, and health (OECD, 2023[7]).
In this context, youth entrepreneurship is too often seen as a panacea to the youth un- or under-employment problem. Young people are much less likely than adults to be self-employed, and while many young people have entrepreneurial interest and ambition, relatively few are successfully starting up or creating new businesses, due in part to the disproportionate barriers that young people face in business creation, including limited access to finance and networks and lower levels of entrepreneurship skills (OECD/European Commission, 2020[8]). In developing countries, these barriers are even higher (OECD, 2017[9]).
Therefore, policies must be careful in promoting entrepreneurship among youth population that have low education and little access to social networks and financial capital. Indeed, most youth entrepreneurs remain in subsistence activities – that is, they do not move beyond activities that support them and their families – and relatively few youth businesses succeed and create jobs for others (OECD, 2017[9]). There are promising but overlooked opportunities to creating wage jobs in local and regional food markets in developing countries. For example, domestic demand for diversified and processed food in developing countries is rising. However, in many developing countries, production fails to keep pace with the rising demand, resulting in rising import dependence for many food products. The agro-food economy thus holds considerable job-creation potential for young people, especially living in rural areas. Additionally, agriculture is an important source of income and contributes to the livelihoods of many rural communities. Turning this potential into real jobs will require substantial new investment in national and regional food systems – from regulatory mechanisms to infrastructure to improve production, processing, and packaging to access to markets (OECD, 2018[10]; OECD, 2021[11]).
The OECD Recommendation on Creating Better Opportunities for Young People (adopted by all OECD member countries in 2022; (OECD, 2022[12]) recommends that countries promote job creation, ensure that quality jobs are available for all young people, and address barriers to labour market entry and transitions, by investing in high-quality employment services, guaranteeing labour rights and adequate pay, stimulating social dialogue and effective collective bargaining, addressing all forms of discrimination, and considering mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Countries are encouraged to promote equitable access to entrepreneurship through business counselling, entrepreneurship training, access to finance and networks.
Examples of practices to promote access to quality jobs are the Youth Employment Subsidy in Chile; the WANTO Grant in the United States; the Young Entrepreneurs Succeed! (YES!) programme in Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain; and the Gatsby Benchmarks in the United Kingdom.
Chile’s Youth Employment Subsidy provides wage support to young, low-income workers with the aim of creating formal employment for young people (CEPAL, 2023[13]).
The WANTO grant aims to assist employers in recruiting, training, and retaining young women in non-traditional occupations by offering grants to enhance women’s access to registered apprenticeship programmes in technical sectors (Butrica, Kuehn and Sirois, 2023[14]).
Young Entrepreneurs Succeed! (YES!) supports young people who are not in employment, education, or training with various services including training, coaching, and mentoring opportunities to start and grow a business or to find a job (Parola, 2021[15]).
The Gatsby Benchmarks articulate eight benchmarks for career guidance against which secondary education providers are evaluated to create a more institutionalised approach towards career guidance (Hanson et al., 2021[16]).
In developing countries, and particularly in Africa, creating decent jobs for rural youth is a pressing issue. In South Africa programmes such as the National Rural Youth Service Corps (Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, Republic of South Africa, 2023[17]) aims to improve skills for rural youth. Combined with other programmes such as the Expanded Public Works Programme (Department of Public Works and Infrastructure; Republic of South Africa, 2018[18]) and the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention (Department of National Treasury; Republic of South Africa, 2021[19]) the government supports job creation for rural youth through a holistic approach of investing in rural areas so that they remain vibrant and attractive for youth. The OECD assessment on the progress of the G20 Initiative for Rural Youth Employment concludes that more needs to be done to stimulate the demand side of the labour market, by investing in agri-food value chains and including young people in the transformation of the global and local food systems (OECD, 2023[20]).
6.1.2. Adapting social protection systems and initiating policies and programmes to support young people
The extent to which social protection systems support young people varies across countries and depends on age-related and other eligibility rules of these systems (OECD, 2024[5]). Income replacement programs alone may still leave a significant portion of young individuals in poverty. Supplementary measures, such as housing and family benefits, health services, and education support, combined with employment measures to help young people find quality employment, are indispensable to ensure adequate living standards. Investing in tailored and integrated public services and programmes, coupled with proactive outreach efforts, can also help provide vulnerable young people with the support they need (OECD, 2023[21]). In developing countries, public works programmes can provide short-term benefits in the form of an income safety net and can be useful in fighting poverty by offering temporary employment to the poorest families and workers. In India, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Schemes provides a minimum 100 days a year of wage employment and has contributed substantially to additional wage employment creation in rural areas (OECD, 2017[22]).
The OECD Youth Policy Toolkit (OECD, 2024[23]) includes a series of good practice examples from OECD member countries to promote opportunities for young people. Measures such as the National Employment Programme (PRONAE) in Costa Rica; the Housing First initiative in Ireland, Canada, Scotland and the Netherlands; and one-stop guidance centres (Ohjaamo) in Finland promote access to robust social security for young people:
PRONAE targets unemployed or underemployed young people facing (extreme) poverty by providing temporary economic aid and supplementary support services contingent upon participation in training activities to prepare them for employment (Contreras Guzmán, Rojas Poveda and Montero Rojas, 2018[24]).
Housing First aims to provide young people aged 18-26 facing homelessness with secure housing as quickly as possible, followed by intensive and targeted support services to help them transition to independent living and prevent future homelessness (Housing First Europe, 2022[25]).
The Ohjaamo centres in Finland work as “multi-agency services” that bring together employment, social, and other services in one physical location to overcome administrative silos and to make it easier for young people to apply for help (Määttä, 2018[26]).
The OECD Recommendation on Creating Better Opportunities for Young People (OECD, 2022[12]) recommends that countries promote social inclusion beyond economic outcomes by providing adequate income support for young people with insufficient means subject to mutual obligation requirements and coupled with high-quality activation services; ensuring affordable, accessible and quality housing for all young people and their dependants; and strengthening outreach to young people in vulnerable and disadvantaged circumstances by providing integrated social, housing, health, employment and legal support.
6.1.3. Tracking youth education outcomes: the OECD’s “Programme for International Student Assessment”
Over the past two decades, the OECD’s “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA) has become the world’s premier yardstick for comparing quality, equity, and efficiency in learning outcomes across countries, and an influential force for education reform. PISA is a primary source of data for the UN system for measuring progress towards SDG 4: “quality education”. PISA has helped policy makers lower the cost of political action by backing difficult decisions with evidence, but it has also raised the political cost of inaction by exposing areas where policy and practice have been unsatisfactory.
Countries and economies that take part in PISA are culturally diverse and have attained different levels of economic development, which can pose challenges to helping youth reach their full potential as learners and human beings.
The latest PISA results (2022) show that education systems can provide both high-quality instruction and equitable learning opportunities for all and support academic excellence not at the expense of student’s well-being, but through students’ well-being. Despite this, the results also show that many education systems are not currently up to this task. The OECD’s analysis of the PISA 2022 results provides the evidence and the policy insights that countries need to address these matters and help education systems rise to the challenge.
PISA 2022 is the first large-scale study to collect data on student performance, well-being, and equity before and after the COVID-19 disruptions. The OECD’s report on PISA 2022 finds that despite the challenging circumstances, 31 countries and economies managed to at least maintain their performance in mathematics since PISA 2018 (the last PISA study). Among these, Australia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Switzerland maintained or further raised already high levels of student performance. These systems showed common features including shorter school closures, fewer obstacles to remote learning, and continuing teacher and parental support, which can further offer insights and indications of broader best practices to address future crises.
Many countries also made significant progress towards universal secondary education, key to enabling equality of opportunity and full participation in the economy. Among them, Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Morocco, Paraguay, and Romania have rapidly expanded education to previously marginalised populations over the past decade.
Ten countries and economies saw a large share of all 15-year-olds with basic proficiency in maths, reading and science and achieve high levels of socio-economic fairness: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong (China), Ireland, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Macao (China), and the United Kingdom. While socioeconomic status remains a significant predictor of performance in these and other OECD countries and economies, education in these countries can be considered highly equitable.
At the same time, on average, the PISA 2022 assessment saw an unprecedented drop in performance across the OECD. Compared to 2018, mean performance fell by ten score points in reading and by almost 15 score points in mathematics, which is equivalent to three-quarters of a year’s worth of learning. The decline in mathematics performance is three times greater than any previous consecutive change. In fact, one in four 15-year-old is now considered a low performer in mathematics, reading, and science on average across OECD countries. This means they can struggle to do tasks such as use basic algorithms or interpret simple texts. This trend is more pronounced in 18 countries and economies, where more than 60% of 15-year-olds are falling behind.
Yet the decline can only partially be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic; the relationship between pandemic-induced school closures, often cited as the main cause of performance decline, is not so direct. Scores in reading and science had already been falling prior to the pandemic. For example, negative trends in maths performance were already apparent prior to 2018 in Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the Slovak Republic. While across the OECD, around half of all students experienced closures for more than three months, PISA results show no clear difference in performance trends between education systems with limited school closures such as Iceland, Sweden, and Chinese Taipei and systems that experienced longer school closures, such as Brazil, Ireland, and Jamaica.
School closures also drove a global conversion to digitally enabled remote learning, adding to long-term challenges that had already emerged, such as the use of technology in classrooms. How education systems grapple with technological change and whether policymakers find the right balance between risks and opportunities, will be a defining feature of effective education systems.
According to the PISA 2022 results, on average across OECD countries, around three quarters of students reported being confident using various technologies, including learning-management systems, school learning platforms, and video communication programs. Students who spent up to one hour per day on digital devices for learning activities in school scored 14 points higher in mathematics than students who spent no time, even after accounting for students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile, and this positive relationship is observed in over half (45 countries and economies) of all systems with available data.
Yet technology used for leisure rather than instruction, such as mobile phones, often seems to be associated with poorer results. Students who reported that they become distracted by other students who are using digital devices in at least some mathematics lessons scored 15 points lower than students who reported that this never or almost never happens, after accounting for students’ and schools’ socioeconomic profile.
PISA data shows that teachers’ support is particularly important in times of disruption, including by providing extra pedagogical and motivational support to students. The availability of teachers to help students in need had the strongest relationship to mathematics performance across the OECD, compared to other experiences linked to COVID-19 school closure. Mathematics scores were 15 points higher on average in places where students agreed they had good access to teacher help. These students were also more confident than their peers to learn autonomously and remotely. Despite this, one in five students overall reported that they only received extra help from teachers in some mathematics lessons in 2022. Around eight percent never or almost never received additional support.
Overall, education systems with positive trends in parental engagement in student learning between 2018 and 2022 showed greater stability or improvement in mathematics performance. This was particularly true for disadvantaged students. These figures show that the level of active support that parents offer their children might have a decisive effect. However, parental involvement in students’ learning at school decreased substantially between 2018 and 2022. On average across OECD countries, the share of students in schools where most parents-initiated discussions about their child’s progress with a teacher dropped by ten percentage points.
There is a positive relationship between investment in education and average performance up to a threshold of USD 75 000 (when adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) which compares economic growth and standards of living in different countries with a common currency) in cumulative spending per student from age 6 to 15. For many OECD countries that spend more per student, there is no relationship between extra investment and student performance. Countries like Korea and Singapore have demonstrated that it is possible to establish a top-tier education system even when starting from a relatively low-income level by prioritising the quality of teaching over the size of classes and funding mechanisms that align resources with needs.
To strengthen the role of education in empowering young people to succeed and ensure merit-based equality of opportunity, the resilience of our education systems will be critical not only to improve learning outcomes measured through PISA, but to their long-term effectiveness. The PISA 2022 data and results and the OECD’s analysis of these provide policymakers across the world with evidence-based policy advice to design resilient and effective education systems that will help give our children and adolescents the best possible future.
The OECD Recommendation on Creating Better Opportunities for Young People (OECD, 2022[12]) encourages countries to ensure that all young people develop appropriate skills and competencies, by providing equitable access to quality education; enabling all young people to participate in an increasingly digitalised world; addressing and mitigating early school leaving; strengthening work-based learning and apprenticeships in close collaboration with employers; providing learner orientation and career guidance; and providing teachers and education staff with relevant support.
6.2. Promoting intergenerational justice
Governments have an important role in promoting intergenerational justice (IJ). Indeed, as recognised in the “OECD Recommendation on Creating Better Opportunities for Young People”, governments can take steps to embed an intergenerational perspective into rule making, public budgeting, public procurement, and infrastructure decision-making and delivery (OECD, 2022[27]). From a public governance perspective, governments can leverage core functions to distribute costs and entitlements fairly across different age groups and generations, for instance when designing regulations or when mobilizing public resources. Strong institutional frameworks and governance tools are essential to overcome short-term thinking and embed long-term planning in policymaking.
While no OECD country has a national IJ strategy in place, a number of countries have included IJ commitments in their sustainable development strategies, national youth strategies, and national elderly/ageing strategies (OECD, 2020[28]). An efficient and fair allocation of public resources is also a powerful tool for governments to invest in the wellbeing of all age groups and future generations. As populations age, the demand for social services, including healthcare and pensions, increases. In this context, policymakers must carefully balance the budgetary needs of aging societies while ensuring the sustainability of public finances and support for young people.
Addressing IJ is becoming increasingly important in the context of population ageing, trends in public finances, climate change, and democratic resilience. Demographic change is challenging the sustainability of public service delivery models built to meet the demands of younger societies. The sustainability of public finances and the fight against climate change also bring intergenerational considerations to the forefront. Young people across OECD countries also tend to express lower trust in government and to vote less in national elections than older people (OECD, 2022[29]). These trends pose concerns for democratic resilience in the context of ageing societies.
OECD data finds that in countries with less age-related inequalities, citizens tend to express higher levels of life satisfaction overall, pointing to the importance of promoting IJ (OECD, 2020[28]). The OECD Framework on a Governance Approach to Promote Intergenerational Justice (Figure 6.1) provides insights regarding IJ and draws on the importance of acknowledging the effects that decisions taken today have on the ability of youth and future generations to enjoy the same level of opportunities as their ancestors. In particular, this Framework highlights five main levers for government action to balance the interests of different age groups as well as those of future generations (OECD, 2020[28]). These include commitment from policy and decisionmakers, as well as the establishment of a strategic vision and of the necessary mechanisms and whole-of-government structures to ensure accountability, anticipation and adaptation of the impact of policies and age diversity in the civil society and political institutions.
Figure 6.1. OECD Framework on a Governance Approach to Promote Intergenerational Justice
Source: (OECD, 2020[28]).
The UN Draft Declaration, in its articles 32 and 33, highlights the importance of coordinating different governmental entities and levels as well as developing partnerships with relevant stakeholders to ensure a cross-sectoral approach to promote IJ. While IJ considerations are integrated in a fragmented way in policymaking across most OECD members, some administrations have taken efforts to better integrate such efforts across the whole-of-government.
In New Zealand, the Public Service has a duty of stewardship, to look ahead and provide advice on future challenges and opportunities. To achieve this, the Public Service Act 2020 requires departmental chief executives to publish a Long-term Insights Briefing (Briefing) at least once every three years. The adoption of the Well-Being of Future Generations Act in Wales (UK) in 2015 is another example of a strong political commitment to integrate intergenerational justice considerations in policy making and governance.
Box 6.1. Promoting intergenerational justice across all government levels and sectors
New Zealand: Stewardship reporting in New Zealand Standards Framework (LSF)
New Zealand public sector agencies have been required to prepare Long-Term Insights Briefings since 2020. These Briefings are think pieces on the future, not government policy, and are developed independently of ministers. The Briefings support informed public debate on long-term and inter-generation issues by publishing information and analysis about medium and long-term trends, risks and opportunities and policy options for responding to these matters. There are also requirements for public consultation around the subject matter to be included in a long-term insights briefing; and a draft of the briefing.
In addition to its Long-Term Insights Briefing, the New Zealand Treasury is required to independently prepare three additional ‘stewardship reports’ on a regular basis: a Long-Term Fiscal Statement, an Investment Statement and a Wellbeing Report. Together, these reports help orient policy and finances toward long term, intergenerational wellbeing outcomes.
Intergenerational wellbeing has been a theme of these reports. For example, the New Zealand Treasury’s 2021 Long-Term Fiscal Statement and Long-Term Insight Briefing explored how policy settings can affect intergenerational fiscal outcomes. Treasury’s first Wellbeing Report, which was published in 2020, highlighted that older people in New Zealand tend to be doing better across a range of wellbeing metrics compared to younger people and analysed the sustainability of wellbeing using the four ‘aspects of wealth’ or capitals in the Living Standards Framework.
The Wellbeing Report was framed by the Treasury’s Living Standards Framework. It was established as a conceptual tool to support improvements in the quality of the Treasury’s advice through ensuring the wider dimensions of well-being are taken into account in its policy advice. In addition, the Treasury uses the He Ara Waiora framework, which was developed by an expert group of Māori thought leaders, to help it to better reflect Māori perspectives on well-being and living standards in its policy advice. The Treasury applies both the Living Standards Framework and He Ara Waiora to explore well-being from different cultural perspectives.
These frameworks encourage analysts to consider the distributional impacts of policies, including disparities among different age groups. The Treasury’s value for value for money guidance also encourages agencies and Treasury analysts to think broadly about the benefits and costs of an initiative, including impacts in other sectors, distributional impacts and longer-term impacts.
Wales, United Kingdom: Well-being of Future Generation Act (2015)
In 2015, Wales implemented the Well-being of Future Generations Act to guide the public sector in formulating policies aimed at ensuring a high quality of life for present and future generations. This Act underscores the imperative of taking proactive measures today to cultivate a brighter future and requires public entities in Wales to consider the enduring consequences of their decisions. It sets out seven national well-being goals for Wales: prosperous, resilient, healthier, more equal and cohesive communities, globally responsible, vibrant culture, and thriving Welsh language. The Act also establishes statutory guidelines for creating the position of a Future Generations Commissioner, whose responsibility involves offering guidance to public bodies in effectively implementing the Act’s principles.
The development of a strategic vision for government action can help establish clear objectives, targets, and measures. At least nine OECD countries have included references to the rights of future generations in their constitution. In addition, at least 19 OECD countries have integrated intergenerational commitments in their national youth strategy and/or in their national elderly/ageing strategy (Box 6.2), and at least 13 OECD countries also included intergenerational commitments in their sustainable development strategies (OECD, 2020[28]).
Box 6.2. Selected country practices on intergenerational commitments in national youth and elderly strategies
In its National Youth Strategy 2014-2020, the Czech Republic uses the principle of intergenerational dialogue and emphasises the role of empathy and the ability to listen to one another in intergenerational relations, especially in areas of employment, as well as the mutual sharing of cultural and societal norms. Similarly, the national youth strategy in Portugal (Plano Nacional da Juventude 2018-21) includes commitments to invest in the environmental literacy of young people and covers initiatives such as social support for young people up until age 23 to use public transportation; the promotion of youth volunteering in the context of preserving nature, forests, and ecosystems; and support for social and environmental-based entrepreneurship among students. Moreover, through the “Active Ageing Strategy for a Longer and Better Working Life” in Latvia, the country aims to forge intergenerational co-operation and reduce stereotypes against older people.
Dedicated institutions and mechanisms can be established to monitor the implementation of government commitments to future generations, sustaining accountability, but the importance of accountability mechanisms remains under-explored in the UN Draft Declaration.
In at least nice OECD countries and Malta, public institutions have been established with the objective to monitor the implementation of government policies and scrutinise their impact on future generations (Network of Institutions for Future Generations, n.d.[35]). For instance, in 1993 Finland established the Committee for the Future as a standing committee in its Parliament. The Committee consists of 17 Members of the Finnish Parliament and serves as a Think Tank for futures, science, and technology policy within the remit of the Prime Minister.
Public management tools can also help policymakers integrate an age perspective into policymaking, assessing and addressing potential generational impacts. Enhancing the collection and use of age-disaggregated evidence, strengthening strategic foresight capacity, integrating an intergenerational lens in regulatory and budgetary impact assessments, and ensuring adequate monitoring and evaluation frameworks can help public administrations in promoting IJ.
Articles 29, 30, and 31 of the UN Declaration also highlight the need to promote governance arrangements that are more anticipatory, adaptive, and responsive to future risks and challenges. Austria, Belgium (Flanders), France, Italy (Parma) and Germany established “youth checks” to assess the regulatory impact on young people (Box 6.3).
Box 6.3. Assessing the regulatory impact on young people in Austria, Belgium (Flanders), France, Italy (Parma), and Germany
In 2020, 31 OECD countries reported using regulatory impact assessments to anticipate the impacts of draft legislation on specific social groups. For example:
Since 2013, the Child and Youth Impact Assessment in Austria has been applied to all new legislative and regulatory proposals to evaluate their potential consequences on young people.
Since 2008, the Child and Youth report (JoKER) in Flanders, Belgium, has been fully integrated into the regulatory impact analysis assessing the effects of new regulations on people aged 0-25.
Since 2009, the Youth Impact Clause in France has required the ministry in charge of drafting new legislation and regulation to assess its impact on young people, intergenerational justice, and non-discrimination in access to rights and public services.
Since 2017, the Competence Centre Youth-Check (ComYC) in Germany has been responsible for conducting the youth check.
In 2024, the European Commission committed to applying a youth check when designing policies, notably by leveraging the existing Better Regulation tools, including consultations and impact assessments. Local authorities are also starting to adopt similar tools, as is the case in the Italian city of Parma.
Promoting age diversity in public life and decision-making is critical to address barriers younger and older people can face when seeking to shape policymaking and engage in political life. Age diversity in public life remains under-explored in the UN Draft Recommendation. Young people face several barriers to voting and running as candidates in elections, including voter registration requirements, trade-offs between investing in political involvement and studies/employment, lack of funding, traditional stereotypes, and minimum age requirements.
Numerous OECD countries have reviewed minimum age policies in recent years. The minimum age to vote in national elections is 18 in all OECD countries except Austria (16) and Greece (17). Korea lowered the voting age from 19 to 18 in 2019. In Italy in 2021, the minimum age to vote for the Senate was lowered from 25 to 18. In Austria, Estonia, Greece, and Israel, the minimum age to vote is below 18 in regional and local elections (17 for Greece and Israel; 16 for Austria and Estonia).
Policy Recommendations
To empower young people for a more equitable and sustainable future, governments and the international community can consider:
Supporting young people in their transition into and within the labour market
Promote job creation, address labour market barriers, and ensure that quality jobs are available for all young people;
Ensure that workplaces are barrier-free and that jobs are fair, safe and contribute to healthy and meaningful lives for young people;
Strengthen employment services and support available for young people; and
Promote equitable access to entrepreneurship through counselling and training and access to finance and networks.
Promoting social inclusion and youth well-being beyond economic outcomes
Provide adequate income support for young people with insufficient means coupled with high-quality activation services;
Ensure access to affordable and quality housing; and
Strengthen outreach to young people in vulnerable and disadvantaged circumstances by providing integrated social, housing, health, employment, and legal support.
Ensuring that young people develop appropriate skills and competencies
Gather high-quality data to inform youth policy and improve educational systems;
Provide equitable access to quality education and enable all young people to participate in an increasingly digitalised world;
Address and mitigate early school leaving;
Strengthen work-based learning and apprenticeships in close collaboration with employers;
Provide learner orientation and career guidance; and
Offer relevant support to teachers and education staff.
Promoting intergenerational justice
Raise awareness of intergenerational justice considerations among policy makers and equip them with adequate skills and resources to address age-based inequalities; including fostering youth’s participation in decision-making processes;
Apply strategic foresight to explore various future implications of current policies against the backdrop of multiple disruptions as well as public management tools such as regulatory impact assessments to address inequalities across age groups and anticipate long-term impacts; and
Strengthen oversight and accountability mechanisms to monitor youth and intergenerational justice commitments and facilitating the independence of such mechanisms.
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