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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence and drivers of employment vulnerability among youth in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia, and their propensity to transition to better jobs over time.

The analysis is based on longitudinal data from Labor Market Panel Surveys spanning 6–20 years. The authors use transition matrices to examine the prevalence of transitions between labor market statuses for the same individuals over time, distinguishing between youth and non-youth, and men and women, as well as multinomial logistic regressions that control for individual and family background, including previous labor market status, family wealth and parental education.

The paper finds that youth in all three countries were disadvantaged in terms of labor market outcomes with most young men in particular ending up in vulnerable jobs while women of all ages were most likely to exit the labor market all together, unless they had formal jobs. Moreover, youth who started out in the labor market in a vulnerable job were unlikely to move to a better-quality job over time. Family wealth, parental education and father's occupation were found to be important determinants of labor market outcomes and vulnerability, even after a long period of work experience.

The paper finds that wealth effects, parental education and occupation effects follow workers throughout their careers, implying low equality of opportunity and inter-generational and lifetime mobility.

The findings indicate worsening labor market outcomes over time, heavily influenced by family background. High levels of vulnerable employment persistence, regardless of skill and experience, reinforce the importance of initial labor market outcome on the quality of lifetime employment prospects.

This paper aims to review global adolescent empowerment programmes and develops and proposes a model that can be used with vulnerable adolescents. The model reflects theory and experience drawn from the literature.

The review is a synthesis of articles on empowerment theory, models and programme evaluations. Literature is selected and critiqued that reflects aspects of empowerment as described by Freire or relating to empowering models that could be generalised and related specifically to vulnerable adolescent programmes. Vulnerable adolescents within the context of this paper have been identified as those experiencing social, economic, cultural or physical disadvantage.

The findings document that empowerment programmes do not fully integrate the theory or pedagogy of empowerment as described by Freire. In most cases the goals of empowerment programmes, when stated, do not reflect the transformative or social action aspects of empowerment theory. Nevertheless there are sufficient examples of successful empowerment programmes with marginalised populations to warrant more rigorous application and evaluation of empowerment theory with this population in a variety of social settings. The relationship between the facilitator and participants and the development of critical consciousness are two vital aspects of empowerment theory that are unexplored and need further study.

Many empowerment programmes for vulnerable adolescents in resource‐poor countries have not been evaluated or have not been published. Lack of consistency in the use of terminology and evaluation also makes it difficult to compare studies.

This paper proposes a model of empowerment that could be effective in addressing the health needs of marginalised adolescents and is based on theory and field experiences.

This study aims to direct war-affected youth’s self-identity towards microcredit. Youth is an important life stage for individuals’ self-identity formation. Features, labels and meanings associated with products can influence youth’s self-identity development.

A quantitative-survey method was used for data collection. The sample comprised 1,160 youth microcredit users aged between 18 and 24 years selected from the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. Analysis was conducted mainly in three steps, testing measurement model, hypotheses testing and testing for moderation effects.

The findings revealed that positive affect directed the youth’s self-identity towards microcredit, whereas perceived deterrents played a negative role. Knowledge of microcredit enhanced these attitudes. Also, entrepreneurial desire enhanced the association between positive affect and self-identity, and weakened the negative association between perceived deterrents and self-identity.

The data were cross-sectional and this study was conducted in one country. So, the model needs replication amongst youth in other war-affected countries and with longitudinal data. Additionally, this study is open for expansion by incorporating other constructs that can draw vulnerable youth’s self-identity around products.

This research suggests how war-affected youth’s self-identity can be drawn around microcredit.

This study proposes a unique conceptual model to draw vulnerable youth’s self-identity closer to products beneficial for their well-being, in this case, microcredit.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the socio-economic characteristics of workers engaged in vulnerable jobs in Mauritius. The study has a particular focus on the gender and youth dimensions of vulnerable employment. The study also provides a pre-crisis and post-crisis analysis of vulnerable employment.

The paper uses several waves of the continuous multi-purpose household survey, which is a high-quality individual-level data set, to study vulnerable employment. Several definitions of vulnerable employment are used to identify the workers employed in vulnerable jobs. These include “own-account” workers and “contributing family workers”.

The results obtained suggest that women and young workers have a lower probability of being in vulnerable employment. Marital status, age and education are also important variables influencing the probability of being in vulnerable employment.

The paper has important policy implications regarding welfare and education policies. Appropriate mechanisms need to be put in place for the social protection and training of workers so that they do not end up in vulnerable jobs.

This paper studies Mauritius as it is a small island economy vulnerable to external shocks. Vulnerable unemployment has often been understudied as the focus of many studies has been solely on employment, and the quality of employment has often not been considered.

Complex inequalities have shaped the trajectory of the HIV epidemic in South Africa. These include factors related to gender disempowerment, poverty, family disruption and violence – all of which have intensified the risk of HIV infection among the majority of South Africans, contributing to one of the most severe country-level HIV epidemics globally. Neo-liberal economic policies adopted in the post-apartheid period failed to address poverty and burgeoning urban migration – both of which were key factors exacerbating vulnerability to HIV. While there was, ostensibly, a strong commitment to addressing the HIV epidemic by the post-apartheid government, HIV prevalence among pregnant women quadrupled from 7.6% in 1994 to 30.2% in 2005. Contributing to this rise, was a series of missteps by the national Department of Health in the late 1990s, which constrained HIV prevention efforts and stifled HIV treatment. The mid-2000s saw a reprioritisation of the response to the epidemic, with international guidelines supported by biomedical and social research underpinning a rights- and evidence-based response. Multisectoral HIV prevention activities were complemented by high levels of investment in implementing prevention of mother to child HIV transmission and expanding access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV through the public sector. While these efforts contributed to stabilising the epidemic, stark inequalities in vulnerability and susceptibility to HIV infection continued – in particular, among youth. In this chapter, we draw on a review of the research literature to describe concerns and explore opportunities for a response.

This paper considers the potential of social media for developing public services. The paper approaches social media as a context that can provide information that might otherwise be unattainable. The focus of analysis is on a special hard-to-reach group of marginalized youths who appear to have isolated themselves from society.

The authors answer the question: How can the experiences of socially withdrawn youth as shared on social media be used to enrich the knowledge base relating to the initiation phase of co-creation of public services? The data retrieved from the Finnish discussion forum are analyzed using the combination of unsupervised machine learning and discourse analysis.

The paper contributes by outlining a method that can be applied to identify expertise-by-experience from digital stories shared by marginalized youths. To overcome the challenges of making socially withdrawn youths real contributors to the co-creation of public services, this paper suggests several theoretical and managerial implications.

Co-creation assumes an interactive and dynamic relationship where value is created at the nexus of interaction. However, the evidence base for successful co-creation, particularly with digital technology, is limited. This paper fills the gap by providing findings from a case study that investigated how social media discussions can be a stimulus to enrich the knowledge base of the co-creation of public services.

The purpose of this paper is to educate forensic interviewers about autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and tools for interviewing youth with ASD when there are concerns of child sexual abuse (CSA).

Research is reviewed to discuss risk factors for CSA in youth with ASD, why CSA is often not recognized and research-based strategies for forensically interviewing youth with ASD.

Youth with ASD are at increased risk of CSA compared to neurotypical peers, but recognition of CSA in youth with ASD can be difficult. Forensic interviewing strategies can help interviewers obtain reports of CSA from youth with ASD.

Given the increase in prevalence of ASD and the increased risk of CSA, forensic interviewers need to have information about ASD, about why CSA may not be recognized, about risk factors for CSA and, especially, about how to accommodate for ASD when conducting forensic interviews.

This paper provides a novel framework for considering evidence-based practices for forensically interviewing youth with ASD when there are concerns of CSA. Specifically, this paper includes multiple, but related areas, in one article including research related to ASD, risk factors for CSA in those with ASD, obstacles to identifying CSA and the implications of this research for specific strategies regarding how to forensically interview youth with ASD when there are concerns of CSA.

Bottom of pyramid market (BOP) has gained attention of researchers and marketers in recent years. The BOP market comprises many segments, however, little is known about purchase behaviour in BOP market or segments therein. The purpose of this paper is to investigate youth's intentions of seeking microcredit in the post-war era that are an integral part of BOP market.

The sample comprised 1,250 youth aged 18 and above from Northern Province of Sri Lanka. Surveys were administered for data collection. After testing measurement model, a structural model was run to test hypotheses.

Positive affect, subjective norms and entrepreneurial desire enhanced intentions of seeking microcredit, whereas perceived deterrents negatively influenced those intentions. Perceived benefits, perceived behavioural control and knowledge of microcredit did not have significant effects on these intentions.

This study was conducted in one war-affected country, Sri Lanka. Also, data were cross-sectional. Hence the model needs replication amongst youth in other post-conflict contexts and with longitudinal data.

Findings of this study would be of use to market microcredit to youth in post-conflict era and other segments of BOP.

A unique purchase behavioural model is suggested to enhance youths’ intentions of seeking microcredit in the post-war era, a segment within the BOP market. This study can contribute to purchase behaviour literature in identified contexts.

This study aims to explore the NEET (Not in Education, Employment and Training) experiences of young people living in impoverished settings.

Methodologically, this study was informed by a qualitative analysis of visual and textual data related to a body mapping exercise with eleven young people who were participants in a four-day start-up workshop in a larger action research project.

The findings reveal that, although being NEET negatively affects young people’s self-esteem, confidence, hope for the future and general well-being, body mapping can help them discover latent assets useful for reducing their insecurities.

Researchers using this method need to be well prepared to deal with possible emotional trauma, and to this end, we provide some guidelines for the effective implementation of body mapping.

Higher education can offer hope and a way forward for vulnerable populations. In particular, access to internationally recognized degrees and credentials has the potential to be a key protection priority for refugee populations, opening alternative solutions to displacement through economic empowerment and increased mobility.

While innovations in online learning have opened new pathways, the delivery of higher education to refugee learners in resource-deprived settings – including camps and urban environments – remains notoriously challenging. Therefore, there is an imperative to draw upon lessons learned from existing programs in order to identify promising practices and emerging innovations.

In this chapter, we draw on our experiences of developing a higher education model for refugee and vulnerable learners to argue that successful delivery of accredited degrees to populations affected by forced displacement relies upon the following three key elements:

• 1)

  Flexible mode of degree delivery and assessment.

• 2)

  Robust blended learning model with in-person academic support.

• 3)

  Provision of adaptive and context-specific interventions and resources.

Flexible mode of degree delivery and assessment.

Robust blended learning model with in-person academic support.

Provision of adaptive and context-specific interventions and resources.

The case study for this chapter is an initiative called the Global Education Movement at Southern New Hampshire University, which delivers accredited degrees to refugee and refugee-hosting populations in five countries. Evidence from the program in Rwanda, operated in partnership with a local partner, Kepler, suggests it is possible for a full degree program to be successful in reaching vulnerable learners, including refugees.