Marking International Youth Day 2018, UNFPA in partnership with the National Bureau of Statistics Maldives (NBS) prepared a series of communication materials to illustrate the life of Maldivian Youth by presenting a comprehensive narrative of the main conclusions of the Thematic Analysis on Youth in the Maldives with data collected from the Census 2014.

Today Youth in the Maldives:

• Are eager to pursue studies and find work as they move into adult life. They begin by migrating to places where opportunities actually exist;
• Maldives can boast that almost all its young people have completed primary education or more;
• School attendance rates are close to 100% for both girls and boys up to the age of 15;
• Generally, they marry in their early to mid-twenties (women at age 22.2 and men at age 25.4);
• Young people make up a significant proportion of the labour force, more than half (54%) of the labout force is aged 18 to 34 while 23% is 15 to 24 years old;
• Unemployment for young people ages 18 to 19 is much higher than for other groups, where 18% women and 22% of men (who have previously entered the labour force) are unemployed;
• Unemployment: women ages 20 to 34 are in charge of household and childcare while men of the same age group point other reasons, such as being unable to find suitable work matching their level of education, lack of employment opportunities in their island of residence, and ill health and/or disability.