Youth in Sri Lanka : a review of literature

Conflict, Violence and Peace, 2015

The intention of this chapter is to inform already existing scholarly narratives of recovery where a perspective of youth is found to be limited. In Sri Lanka, youth are not visible in the general discourse on post-conflict recovery and its manifestations. Given the account by youth about their experiences and strategies during the war and postwar, the chapter shows that multiple transitions take place in the process from war to postwar and not all processes reach all relevant groups. Among youth, multiple restrictions on social and spatial mobility have led to frustrations instead of increasing hopes for a safe, peaceful, and just society. As the research presented in this chapter shows, young people see

The national youth survey (NYS) that was concluded in 2009 provides ground to better understand the needs, aspirations and ideologies of youth whereby making it possible to understand the trends in youth activism in Sri Lanka.

2010

She has worked for more than 10 years as a practitioner and researcher in the development sector in Sri Lanka, focusing mainly on gender-related issues and psychosocial work. She has also been a visiting lecturer in women's studies at the University of Colombo. She has contributed to a number of publications within the gender, youth, and psychosocial fields, and was editor of Options, a Sri Lankan feminist magazine, for a number of years. Her main research work has included developing a framework for understanding wellbeing in Sri Lanka and exploring issues of gender equality and equity. Her doctoral research is looking at women's agency within marriages and families. Harini Amarasuriya is a doctoral student in social anthropology in a joint PhD program with the University of Edinburgh and Queen Margaret University. She has worked in the development and humanitarian sector for the past 12 years as a practitioner and researcher, with a focus on gender, youth, children, and psychosocial wellbeing. She is the co-author of Political and Social Exclusion of Youth in Sri Lanka, and Rethinking the

Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2015

Advances in Economics and Business

This study attempts to investigate the Youth Not in Education, Employment and Training (NEET) in Sri Lanka. The objectives of this study include identifying the share of youth NEET in Sri Lanka as a percentage of population with regards to national, sectoral, gender, education, ethnicity and marital status, and to identify the determinants of those who are NEET. This study is based on cross-sectional data obtained from Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (SLFS) 2015. The methodology adopted for the study consists of two major components. First component attempts to generate youth NEET estimates for Sri Lanka using descriptive statistics tools. The second component of the methodology includes a logistic regression analysis to identify the determinants of youth NEET. The study found that Sri Lanka has a significantly high youth NEET rate of 25.8 percent in 2015, which is unsatisfactory to the Sri Lankan labour market. This raises the labour market vulnerability with regards to youth population of Sri Lanka. The research also found the significant NEET disparities among youths by sector, gender, age, education, ethnicity and marital status. Moreover, the logistic regression analysis identified age, gender, education, residential sector and marital status as the significant determinants of youth NEET in Sri Lanka.

2018

This background paper was prepared as an input on the qualitative component of the "Socio-Economic Assessment of the Conflict Affected Northern and Eastern Provinces" conducted by the World Bank in 2017. The findings from this paper were summarized as Background Paper No. 1 to the main report. The qualitative component of the assessment was conducted by the International Centre for Ethnic Studies for the World Bank. The final version of this paper served as inputs to the World Bank publication:

Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka, 2024

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka offers a comprehensive survey of issues facing the island country and an overview delineating some key moments in the country’s contemporary polity, economy, and sociality. This book outlines aspects and influences foundational to understanding a country defined by its economic and political turmoil, and rift with public distrust in today’s shifting geopolitics. Chapters by various established scholars highlight this book’s pivotal contribution in situating Sri Lanka’s turmoil and deprivation in this current conjuncture. The handbook is structured in seven parts: Nations and Nationalism Politics, State and Institutions Economy and Political Economy Work and Life Environment and Environmental Politics Society, Social Systems, and Culture Moment of Flux, Looking Ahead Each part includes on average six chapters covering the social sciences and humanities to survey emerging and cutting-edge areas of the study of Sri Lanka. Multi-disciplinary in focus, the book also includes an introductory section and concluding section, which creates the space and platform for senior, mid-ranking, and junior academics to engage in dynamic conversation with each other about contemporary Sri Lanka. Including scholarship from Sri Lankan experts, the handbook creates academic output, which chimes with broader calls in academia on decolonising the academic landscape. An important reference work, this handbook will be of interest to scholars and students from wideranging academic disciplines and a focus on Sri Lanka, Asian and South Asian studies, sociology, environmental politics, development, labour, management, political economy and anthropology.

2005

This research report is one of a series completed within the DFID-funded research project 'Globalisation, Qualifications, Livelihoods and Youth'. The research examines the impact of globalisation on livelihoods, education and qualifications, and on the aspirations of youth for education, qualifications and livelihoods. The research arises from the need to monitor the impact of globalisation-operationalised via policies of economic liberalisation-on the access of the poorest social groups to livelihoods, education and qualifications in different country contexts. Economic liberalisation is changing the nature of the livelihood structure and the economic demand for skills and qualifications. It is also changing the types of educational and qualifications provision within specific national settings. These in turn impact on the aspirations of youth for livelihoods, education and qualifications. The realisation of those aspirations is increasingly conditioned by the ability to pay, as policies of economic liberalisation encourage private sector, market driven provision, especially at the post-primary level. This research explores the impacts of economic liberalisation on the structure and volume of livelihoods, education and qualifications on the one hand, and on the aspirations of youth, on the other. In particular it seeks to explore differential impacts of economic liberalisation on members of different social groups. The fieldwork has been undertaken mainly in Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. A smaller study was undertaken in Zhejiang Province, China. And a study of UK suppliers of qualifications to Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe was undertaken to explore the interdependent, cross border nature of qualifications supply. Research Report no 14 by Nishara Fernando and Siri Hettige of the University of Colombo, synthesises the results from the nine community studies presented in Reports 5-13. These studies were undertaken among diverse communities in the Central, North Central, North Western, Southern, Uva and Western Provinces.