There is a peculiar irony in the way states celebrate their youth. They speak of numbers with pride, percentages with optimism, and projections with confidence. A large young population becomes a slogan, a promise, almost a poetic abstraction.
Yet history has rarely been kind to such abstractions when they are not grounded in reality. What we often call a “demographic dividend” is not a dividend at all. It is a wager.
In Bangladesh today, that wager is becoming increasingly uneasy.
Recent remarks by Johannes Jutt of the World Bank have merely articulated what many have sensed for years but preferred not to confront directly. Nearly half of the working-age youth in the past decade have failed to secure employment.
Fourteen million have entered the labour market, but only 8.7 million have found jobs. Numbers like these do not simply describe an economic gap. They signal a deeper structural dissonance between aspiration and absorption.
This dissonance is where the real story lies.
Economists have long debated the conditions under which a demographic dividend becomes real. The classical growth models of Robert Solow, for instance, assume that labour, capital, and technology interact in a relatively balanced way.
But what happens when labour grows faster than the system’s capacity to absorb it productively?
In such cases, labour ceases to be an asset and becomes a burden, not because people themselves are unproductive, but because the system fails to organize their productivity.
In Bangladesh, the issue is not simply unemployment. It is underemployment, misemployment, and the silent expansion of what sociologists would call “liminal existence.”
A generation that is educated enough to aspire but not empowered enough to achieve becomes trapped in an in-between state. They are neither fully integrated into the economy nor entirely excluded from it. They exist, but do not participate meaningfully.
Émile Durkheim warned of a condition he termed “anomie” where social norms lose their hold over individuals, leading to a sense of purposelessness and disconnection.
Unemployment, especially among the youth, is one of the most fertile grounds for such anomie. When the promises of education do not translate into opportunities, the social contract begins to erode. The individual starts to question not only the system but also their own place within it.
This erosion is rarely loud in its early stages. It manifests quietly in frustration, withdrawal, and a gradual loss of trust. But as history suggests, such quiet discontent can accumulate into something far more volatile.
Political scientists have repeatedly shown that large cohorts of unemployed or underemployed youth can become catalysts for instability.
The Arab Spring, often romanticized as a movement for democracy, had at its core a deeply economic frustration. Young people, educated but unemployed, connected but excluded, became the driving force behind mass mobilization.
Samuel P Huntington, in his work on political order, argued that instability arises not merely from poverty but from the gap between rising expectations and institutional capacity.
Bangladesh today sits precisely within that gap.
The expansion of higher education has created a generation that expects mobility, dignity, and participation. Yet the structure of the economy has not evolved at a comparable pace.
Industrial diversification remains limited, the service sector is uneven, and the informal economy continues to absorb a large portion of the workforce without offering security or upward mobility.
The result is a paradox. The country produces graduates, but not necessarily employable skills. It generates aspirations, but not pathways.
This is not merely an economic inefficiency. It is a systemic contradiction.
Karl Marx once described labour as the essence of human existence, the means through which individuals express their creativity and engage with society. When labour is denied or devalued, alienation emerges.
In contemporary Bangladesh, this alienation is not confined to factory floors or industrial settings. It is present in classrooms, in households, in the minds of young people who find themselves waiting, often indefinitely, for an opportunity that may never arrive.
At the same time, the state continues to bear the material consequences of this imbalance.
An unemployed population still consumes. It still requires food, healthcare, and basic services. But it does not contribute proportionately to production or revenue generation.
This creates a fiscal strain that is both immediate and cumulative. Food security becomes more fragile, social protection systems become more burdened, and public spending faces increasing pressure.
Yet perhaps the most overlooked consequence is psychological.
Amartya Sen has argued that development should be understood not merely in terms of income but in terms of capabilities.
Employment is central to this idea because it enables individuals to exercise agency, to make choices, and to participate in society.
When employment is absent, capabilities shrink. A person may have education, but without opportunity, that education becomes inert.
This inertness is dangerous because it breeds a sense of futility.
A young person who repeatedly fails to find meaningful work does not simply remain unemployed. They begin to disengage.
Some may turn to migration, seeking opportunities abroad. Others may enter precarious forms of work that offer survival but not stability.
A few may drift towards deviance, not necessarily out of intent, but out of disillusionment.
The state, in such a scenario, faces a dual crisis. It must manage the economic implications of unemployment while simultaneously addressing its social and political consequences.
This is why the call for reform, as emphasized by Johannes Jutt, cannot be treated as a routine policy recommendation. It is a structural necessity.
But reform, as experience shows, is often easier to articulate than to implement.
The challenge lies in coherence.
Industrial policy, for instance, cannot be separated from education policy. Expanding manufacturing without ensuring a skilled workforce leads to inefficiencies.
Similarly, producing graduates without aligning curricula with market needs leads to underemployment. The two must evolve together.
Small and medium enterprises, often described as the backbone of employment generation, require not just financial support but also regulatory ease and infrastructural backing.
An investment-friendly environment is not created through slogans but through consistency, transparency, and predictability.
Above all, there is a need to rethink the very narrative of the demographic dividend.
The term itself suggests inevitability, as if a large young population will automatically translate into economic growth.
But history offers no such guarantees. Countries that have successfully harnessed their demographic potential have done so through deliberate and sustained effort.
They have invested in human capital, created diversified economies, and built institutions capable of managing change.
Bangladesh’s situation is not unique, but it is urgent.
The youth of today are not merely future citizens. They are present realities.
Their frustrations, aspirations, and choices are shaping the country in real time. Ignoring this reality in favour of optimistic projections is not just misguided. It is risky.
Max Weber once observed that the fate of a society is often determined by the rationality of its institutions.
In Bangladesh, the question is whether institutions can respond rationally to the pressures of a changing demographic landscape.
Can policies move beyond rhetoric to implementation? Can systems adapt quickly enough to absorb a growing workforce?
These are not abstract questions. They are deeply practical, and their answers will define the trajectory of the country.
The metaphor of fire is often used to describe the demographic dividend. It is a powerful image, but perhaps an incomplete one.
Fire does not inherently create or destroy. It depends on how it is managed. In a controlled environment, it can fuel growth and transformation. Left unattended, it can spread uncontrollably.
Bangladesh stands at a moment where that distinction matters more than ever.
The youth are not just a resource waiting to be utilized. They are a force already in motion. Whether that force becomes constructive or disruptive will depend not on their potential, but on the system’s ability to engage with that potential meaningfully.
The wager, in other words, is still open. But the window to win it is narrowing.
HM Nazmul Alam is an Academic, Journalist, and Political Analyst based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Currently he teaches at IUBAT.