Across much of the Global South, young people are no longer marching towards adulthood. They are waiting at its threshold. Education has expanded, populations are younger than ever, and growth has returned in headline terms. Yet the passage from school to stable work is narrowing, delayed, or closing entirely. This bottleneck, more than debt or inflation, may define the political and economic trajectory of the next decade.

In most emerging economies, youth are doing what they were told to do. They stay longer in school. They acquire credentials. They learn English, digital skills, and professional norms. And then they wait.

The transition from education to meaningful employment, the single most important bridge in any society, is increasingly fragile across the Global South. According to the International Labour Organization, youth unemployment rates remain persistently two to three times higher than adult rates in many developing economies. More revealing still is underemployment: millions of educated young people working in informal, temporary, or mismatched jobs that offer income without progression.

This is not mass idleness. It is stalled mobility.

The result is a generation suspended between preparation and reward, absorbing the costs of development without receiving its dividends.

Much attention is paid to NEET figures, young people Not in Employment, Education or Training. But the deeper problem lies with those who are nominally employed yet effectively stuck.

In countries such as South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Brazil and parts of South Asia, young workers are technically "in work" but remain trapped in insecure roles with low wages, no benefits and little prospect of advancement. Formal employment creation has failed to keep pace with educational expansion. Labour markets have widened horizontally, not vertically.

The danger is psychological as much as economic. When effort does not translate into mobility, belief erodes. The social contract weakens not because people are excluded, but because they are included without reward.

For decades, economists spoke of the "demographic dividend": a youthful population driving growth through labour, consumption and innovation. That dividend is not automatic. It depends on absorption.

In several Global South economies, the youth bulge is now colliding with three constraints at once: slow formal job creation, credential inflation, and rigid labour markets and seniority systems.

This collision produces frustration rather than productivity. It also compresses timelines. Young people can wait in their early twenties. They wait less patiently in their thirties. When delayed adulthood becomes permanent postponement, societies absorb pressure quietly until they do not.

Historically, youth discontent manifested through protest, political movements or reformist pressure. Today, the dominant response is exit.

Migration, legal, irregular, temporary, or aspirational, has become the default strategy for capable young people in low-opportunity environments. Even where migration does not materialise, intent matters. Surveys across Africa, South Asia and Latin America show rising proportions of young adults who would leave their country if given the chance.

Those who cannot exit withdraw instead. Civic participation declines. Trust collapses. Entrepreneurship becomes survivalist rather than innovative. Silence replaces engagement.

This is not apathy. It is rational calculation.

The failure is often misdiagnosed as an education problem. In reality, many Global South systems have succeeded in expanding access. What they have failed to build is transition infrastructure.

Few countries invest seriously in apprenticeship pipelines, school-to-work matching systems, entry-level wage support, or formalisation pathways from informal work.

Instead, responsibility is individualised. Young people are told to "upskill", "adapt" or "innovate" their way out of structural bottlenecks. When they fail, the system frames it as personal deficiency.

This narrative is corrosive. It converts a systemic failure into a private shame.

Youth exclusion rarely produces immediate revolt. It produces delayed instability.

Governments can survive years of youth frustration if older cohorts remain economically secure. But as young people age into electorally significant groups, their stalled trajectories reshape politics. They become more cynical, less trusting, and more receptive to populist or anti-system narratives even when those narratives offer little substance.

In some countries, this expresses itself through protest. In others, through abstention. In many, through quiet disengagement that hollows institutions from within.

The risk is not rebellion. It is erosion.

The Mind Economy framework treats youth opportunity as a leading indicator. Where Youth Opportunity Scores weaken while growth holds, instability is incubating rather than avoided.

By 2026, several Global South economies will face a defining test: whether their young populations believe time is still working in their favour. If the answer is no, growth will continue to lose its persuasive power.

A society can function with inequality. It can even endure corruption. What it cannot sustain indefinitely is a generation that sees no forward motion despite doing everything asked of it.

The most dangerous phrase in development is "at least they are educated." Education without opportunity does not pacify. It sharpens awareness of what is missing.

A generation stuck in the doorway is not a transitional inconvenience. It is a structural risk, one that does not announce itself loudly, but accumulates patiently.

By the time it becomes visible in markets or elections, the waiting will already have turned into something harder to reverse.