Youth in developing economies: Is unemployment actually higher among those with more education?

Unusual Numbers

The youth employment picture presented by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Employment and Social Trends 2026 does not align with a common assumption: the higher a person’s educational attainment, the easier they are generally thought to find a job and the lower their risk of unemployment. But Figure 1.7 of the report shows that this relationship is reversed among young people in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. In 2024, the youth unemployment rate across all education levels in these countries was 11.3%, while the rate for young people with higher education reached 36.6%.

This contrast is not limited to the lowest-income countries. The same set of data in the report shows that in upper-middle-income countries, the youth unemployment rate among those with higher education was 18.2%, higher than among their peers with basic or secondary education. The problem cannot be reduced to whether “education is useful”; it is more a mismatch between levels of education and the structure of available jobs.

In other words, higher educational attainment has not automatically translated into enough suitable jobs. Highly educated young people are often more likely to wait for better-paying work; in many low- and middle-income economies, such jobs are relatively scarce, lengthening the matching process and pushing up unemployment figures.

Waiting for decent jobs keeps people counted as unemployed.

The expectations associated with higher education usually go beyond simply “having a job”; they also include work that is more stable, formal, and offers greater room for advancement. The report points to a narrower mechanism: in some low- and middle-income economies, highly educated young people with financial support are more likely to wait for jobs in the public sector or overseas employment, which are seen as better opportunities; these jobs are often more limited relative to the pool of candidates.

When there are fewer jobs to choose from, highly educated young people are more likely to wait. This waiting is not simply a matter of personal preference; it is also related to how much their families can afford to support them. Those with sufficient family resources can extend the time they spend looking for a suitable job, while those without them can rarely wait for long and have to accept whatever work is available.

This produces a seemingly paradoxical statistical result: young people with less education find “employment” more quickly, but they often enter informal or low-quality jobs; young people with more education do not immediately accept such positions and are therefore recorded as unemployed. A high unemployment rate does not necessarily mean that education itself has reduced people’s abilities; it more likely indicates that the supply of jobs matching those qualifications has not kept pace with the expansion of education.

This set of data is best viewed in the context of the relevant income group: it describes a contrast in youth employment structures in certain developing economies, illustrating a possible mismatch between expanding education and job matching, rather than offering a blanket verdict on labor markets in all countries.

Having less education is not an advantage.

Interpreting these figures as “it is easier for less-educated young people to find work” misses a crucial point about how the data are defined. Young people with less education have fewer resources to wait, and often cannot afford to be selective about jobs. Entering work sooner does not mean they have secured better jobs; it only means they spend less time in the statistical category of “looking for work but not yet employed.”

A higher unemployment rate among highly educated young people does not mean that education has become a liability. It reflects the combined effects of statistical definitions and the matching process: education raises job seekers’ expectations for job quality, while the amount of time they can afford to wait varies with family resources. When the two sides fail to line up, the waiting period is prolonged and the unemployment rate rises.

This is not the same story everywhere in the world.

This analysis focuses solely on youth employment patterns in low-income, lower-middle-income, and upper-middle-income countries. These figures do not classify all countries under a single model; the focus is on the phenomenon in developing economies whereby the unemployment rate among highly educated young people is significantly higher than that of some of their less-educated peers.

So the answer cannot be reduced to the absolute claim that “the higher the level of education, the harder it is to find a job.” Across the income groups examined in the report, higher education may be associated with a longer job-matching process when better positions are relatively scarce, families can afford to wait, and young people with less education enter informal work more quickly. Once this process is reflected in unemployment statistics, it appears as “higher education, higher unemployment.”

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Source institutions：International Labour Organization

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