Troubling Trend for Qatari Youth

Qatari young people have unprecedented economic opportunities. School is paid for, there is a wide selection of US, Canadian and European universities with campuses in Doha and jobs are plentiful for graduates. So, when I was working with recent Qatari labor force data, I was a little puzzled when I noticed that labor force participation for Qatari men had risen to 70% in 2013. This might have been because of a one off spike for one year, but when you break down the labor force participation over time by age group, you see an interesting pattern. While many young men had an increase in participation in 2013 over 2012, the biggest jump was for 20-24 year old me. In other words, the ones who should be in college/university. This year, the number of new Qatari entrants into Qatar university was 3 young women for every 1 young man. Thus, young Qatari men are deciding not to seek university training and go straight into the job market. As an economy whose goal is to be "knowledge driven", this is going to be especially tricky since young men seem to be increasingly skipping the part where they acquire more knowledge.