1. Introduction

Lebanon was one of the first countries in the region to complete its demographic transition, with continuously decreasing fertility rates (approximately 1.5%) and a predominantly young country,¹ with youth constituting 27% of the population in 2012.² In spite of this, the Ministry of Youth and Sports was only established in the year 2000, as youth issues were previously nested under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. In 2009, the Ministry of Youth and Sports launched a special department to deal with youth-related matters and in 2012, Lebanon’s national youth policy finally saw the light (Youth Policy, 2014). Endorsed by the Council of Ministers in April 2012 and developed with the financial and technical support of the international community,³ the policy has however stumbled in the implementation phase, and remains until the time of writing this paper pure rhetoric and wishful thinking.

Youths in Lebanon have generally been studied through the lens of emigration and unemployment. While this literature offers interesting insights, it fails to capture this segment of the population through a broad sociological perspective, comprising the complex economic, social, political, and legal dynamics youths face in a rather constraining environment. Basing itself on a nationwide online consultation, this paper therefore offers to explore youths’ representations in Lebanon today, their – often complex – relations with social, cultural, economic, and political realms, thus questioning their potential transformative role in society. Noting the somewhat elusiveness of the concept of “youth” (ash-shabāb), as well as the lack of a universal definition, a common approach is to generally adopt age ranges as benchmarks. Hence, considering youth as a cohort whose age is comprised between 15-29 facilitates, notably, quantitative comparisons.⁴ Lebanon has officially adopted this age bracket to define  “youth”.⁵ However, looking at the sociological category of “youth” as mere members of a particular age group fails to grasp the depth of this socially constructed category of individuals, its uses, representations, as well as the different social realities these individuals navigate through. Other approaches define youth as the “transition” phase between childhood and adulthood (Dhillon et al. 2009, Dhillon and Yousef 2009). Nevertheless, this transition period is becoming increasingly longer, with prolonged duration of studies, delays in entering the job market, and marriages and families being started at a later age.⁶ 

The online consultation undertaken by Generation What adopts a double perspective: on the one hand, a cohort based one, considering youth as individuals aged between 18 and 34, since one of the aims of the project is to draw on comparative insights on youth in different contexts; and on the other, beyond mere biological age and the concept of adults in the making, the self-depictions of youths, their representations of their contexts, their projections for the future, among others. Indeed, expressions, ideas, and experiences of being young vary across national and cultural contexts, and are structured according to interweaving social relations (class, confessional and/or gender identities among others) – or their euphemization. Contrary to other surveys, Generation What? refrained from adopting selection criteria, using digital tools to leave access to responding to the survey open, and targeting youth in Lebanon, regardless of nationality, religion, class, gender identity or orientation, etc.

In a context where literature on youth (in both the academic and practitioner field) is mainly focusing on their entry – or lack of – to the labour market, emigration rates, disenfranchisement  and  “radicalisation,”  and  an  official  context  of data scarcity and lack of reliable statistics,⁷ this paper endeavours to shed light on the various faces of this generation “in waiting”,⁸ generation Y, or what in contemporary Lebanon. It offers fragments of stories of a generation, that is often jaded and attempting to navigate everyday through the realities of the Lebanese context and system.

The Generation What online survey targeting people aged 18-34 living in Lebanon amassed 868 responses between March and October 2018. The sample of respondents is diverse in terms of age distribution: all ages are represented evenly, each falling between 4 and 8% of the total sample (see fig.1 below).

Fig.1: Age distribution of respondents to the Generation What? survey

The sample, composed of 52.3% of women and 47.7% of men, is representative of the gender distribution in the country.⁹ With 72.7% of the respondents still living with their parents, the sample is also representative of housing habits and options in the country. Moreover, 75.6% of them have completed their high-school education and enrolled in higher education programmes, ranging from preparatory courses (44.1%) and bachelor degrees (24.9%) to masters degrees (3.4%) and doctoral programs (3.2%). While the majority of respondents (40.9%) are working under a permanent contract agreement, nearly a quarter of respondents are unemployed (23.9%).

With this, while the survey does not aim to be exhaustive (with a sample size of less than 1000), it does, however, succeed in capturing an overall image of youths in Lebanon, providing quantitative trends and a snapshot of this generation in the making.

2. A constantly adapting generation: iterations between conforming or individual exits.

For most of the youth surveyed, adulthood is linked to broad moral values. Being an “adult” for the majority of respondents (63.5%) consists of “being mature and responsible”; and many (15.2%) seem to link it to being financially independent and no longer relying on their parents. This corroborates the idea of transition from a state of childhood to a concept of “adulthood,” linked to a rather abstract idea of growth and reliability, and, to a lesser extent, to financial autonomy.

Hence, being autonomous, “leaving home” (27%), and accessing the labour market (39.1%) are voiced as the main elements that pave the way to adulthood in Lebanon. These aspirations show a desire to evade their lived realities, and show a disconnect with the context in Lebanon: estimates of unemployment rates vary from 25%¹⁰ to 30% as per unofficial reports, and housing remains consistently inaccessible,¹¹ which is further exacerbated in winter 2018 with the discontinuing of subsidised housing loans. While, in other contexts, unemployment is considered as an important factor hindering the autonomy of youths (Muxel, Generation What? France, 2017), in Lebanon however, economic challenges are not the only constraint that impede the youth from moving out of their parent’s nest: prevailing social customs tend to consider living with one's parents as the norm until marriage, and young people living on their own or in shared apartments remain a minority.¹² Yet, the majority of respondents (over 50%) do feel and consider themselves as adults, which illustrates an ambivalence in youths’ self-representations.

In a context of an entrenched economic crisis,¹³ over a quarter (30.9%) of the Generation What? respondents in Lebanon believe that it will affect their future. In spite of this, the majority expresses a sense of agency and a feeling of being in control of their lives (34% agreeing or completely agreeing that they are in control of their destiny).

While a majority (57%) see themselves in the future as married with children, in line with their own parents’ way of life, almost half of respondents (49.3%) link having a successful life to being happy day after day, independently of a job or family. As the graph below shows, female and male youths have similar answers as to their conception of success in life, except for two main areas: work and family. In contrast with general gendered preconceptions, more female than male respondents value work and consider having an interesting job key to a successful life, and considerably less women (9% less) than men link having a family to life success.

When asked about their thoughts on happiness, 41.9% of the respondents voiced that they would be happy without Internet while 57.2% would not. This denotes a certain disillusion with online mediums, in spite of a high rate of using social and online media,¹⁴ and is in contrast with global approaches to the internet as full  of potential in democratising access to information, and breaking down barriers between people. This does not, however, imply that youths in Lebanon are isolating and not prioritising living in groups, or not using digital tools to build social and solidarity bonds between each other. In fact, 76.3 % of respondents claim that they would not be happy without friends, “the long wait before acquiring adulthood status [having] intensified friendly and relational activities specific to youth.”¹⁵ The relatively high rate of respondents who would forego access to Internet, and see their happiness unaffected, can be linked to news consumption however. In a context of constant political upheavals and cyclical crises, youths in Lebanon do express a disconnect from politics in general and a desire to “not [focus] on politics but on [them]selves”,¹⁶ and 78.1% of respondents claim they would be happy without having access to news and info.

Another interesting result of the consultation is that 48.9% of the youth surveyed stated they would be happy without religious beliefs. These results are distributed rather equally across sex and age, however with some discrepancy when it comes to the educational level as shown in the graph above. This can suggest that higher educational achievements amongst our respondents draw them to slightly more distanced stances towards religion and family. This is to be read in a context where the political system institutionalises the representation of various religious sects (in confessions) and grants their leaders a broad influence over social and political affairs. This pervasiveness of religion in all aspects of everyday life in Lebanon (from the private realm to the public space) may explain this distanciation of a portion of the youth.

Does the rather gloomy picture above contribute to 72.1% of respondents stating  that they would be happy if they did not live in Lebanon? Without drawing hasty correlations, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this paints a picture of the youth riddled with contradictions, and conflicting feelings as to their conception of growth, their future, and their own self-representation. A generation that operates mainly on a survival mode and that is in a constant search of individual exit strategies.

This could be linked to the fact that the cohort of 18 to 34 years old were either born during Lebanon’s civil war (that spanned officially from 1975 to 1990), or in its lasting aftermath and a context of cold civil peace,¹⁷ and of state-sponsored amnesia and an inability to deal with the past on a national policy level.¹⁸ Indeed, this generation has lived recurrent, routinized, and episodic violence breaking across the country, as well as the prolonged reign of former militias and warlords as elected politicians. It is no wonder, then, that 68.5% of respondents believe that previous generations are responsible for the difficulties the youth face in Lebanon today, ignoring aforementioned socio-economic factors, but also eluding all responsibility.

In spite of it all, the youth are hopeful and optimistic as to their future, with 59.6% believing that their future will be better than their parents’ lives, with respondents falling in the 18-24 age range considerably more optimistic than their 25-34 years old counterparts since 70% of them (18% more than 25-34 years olds) maintain this.

3. Disconnect between the educational system and the job market

Youth in Lebanon is relatively well educated, with a literacy rate of 99%, a level of education of 80%, and a gross enrolment university rate of 38% in 2017.¹⁹ Yet, in assessing whether the educational system prepares them adequately for the job market, 73.9% of respondents do not really agree or totally disagree with that assertion. This is echoed by a quarter of employed respondents who find that their current job is completely not in line with their qualifications. As interviewees of Generation What? maintain:

“There are only 3 schools in Lebanon that run orientation sessions for students since childhood for them to know what profession to strive for. They do not prepare us in the proper way to be able to succeed. Most people are selecting the same careers, either a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer. Not all people love to do this.”²⁰

In Lebanon, the highly privatised educational system contributes to magnifying inequalities and marginalisation, and reduces youth unemployment to an issue of skills. “The private sector emphasises entrepreneurship, business and competitiveness. Unemployment is a major policy issue and the youth are the main targets of sectarian political parties. They tend to find employment in areas that increase their visibility in public spaces such as the army, militias, security firms and the police, as substitutes for other jobs.”²¹ Studies analysing the linkages between the educational system and the job market are quite rare and those that exist seem to converge in highlighting a rather absent regulatory role of the state that leaves education to the private sector (the majority of schools and universities in Lebanon are private and many are run by religious institutions), which contributes to widen the disconnect between young graduates and the job market’s actual needs.²² A majority of Generation What?’s respondents (77.6%), hence, think that the state should play a more proactive role and fund higher education and work placements. In this context, emigration²³ often appears as the sole viable solution for young graduates, as shown by the seminal work of C. Kasparian in the early 2000s.²⁴

This rather contrasted landscape is more challenging as far as non-Lebanese youths are concerned. Indeed, while Palestinian youth has historically been characterised by high educational achievements, over 70 years in exile and life in dire encampment conditions in Lebanon have been enough to contribute to the dramatic decrease of enrolment levels.²⁵ In fact, for them, pursuing an education, maybe even more than their Lebanese counterparts, does not equate to accessing the job market. Indeed, more than twenty professions are prohibited to Palestinians refugees in Lebanon. Syrian refugees face similar challenges since 2011, and the start of the Syrian conflict; the overwhelming majority of children do not have access to formal education, and their elders are confined since 2016 to 3 labour sectors: agriculture, construction, environment (with the latter referring to occupations linked to cleaning and maintenance).²⁶ Thus, when it comes to job seeking in Lebanon, prospects seem bleak for, both, vulnerable Lebanese and non-Lebanese youth alike.

With this, 61.5% of the youth who responded to the Generation What? survey feel uncertain that Lebanon’s education system provides equal chances to all, and a majority (63.9%) of them believe that this system does not reward the deserving. It remains that the striking majority of respondents (87.7%) feels that Lebanese society does not give them the chance to live up to their full potential and capacities.

4. A discerning diagnosis on contemporary society in Lebanon

This comes in a context of heightened socio-economic inequality that youths are not blind to. An overwhelming majority of respondents (94.7%) find the gap between the rich and the poor increasingly widening in Lebanon. An even bigger majority of 95.3% believe that money is too prominent and given too much importance in society, and 95.5% consider there is too much injustice in the country.

“Injustice means living in an air conditioned place [...] Having the power suddenly cut forcing you to turn the hot water tank and the fridge off because your main is 10 amperes and can't handle it.”²⁷

Lebanon’s “merchant republic”²⁸ is characterised by a very liberal economy and scarce redistribution. The absence of a welfare state contributes to nurturing confessional solidarities; indeed, families and communities are the main safety net for all residents in the country, especially for the most vulnerable and disenfranchised:²⁹ it is thus not surprising that 86.2% of youths who responded to the survey find solidarity essential to everyday life, and 70.2% among them regret an increasingly individualistic society.

In contrast, 60% of the Generation What? respondents note that there are too many idlers, leading to question the deep-rootedness of individualism in their mentalities. Against this background, individuals are left with no other choice than finding individual coping mechanisms, cornerstones of the so-called Lebanese resilience.

The myth of the phoenix forever rising of its ashes, in a highly neoliberal system, illustrates the daily struggle to keep afloat in this society, in the absence of rights and protection. It also underlines the seemingly superficial contradictions that structure today’s youth, but also, to a great extent, Lebanon’s social fabric and socio-political system.

“There doesn't exist a women quota which is the most important matter and which is in control of everything. Therefore, there's no gender equality”³⁰

On another note, youths’ perception of society seems to also encompass other facets of inequality, notably regarding gender. Given the importance of gender parity in the social and economic development of any given country, and the fact that Lebanon ranked 137 in the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Gender Gap Report,³¹ figures like 63.6% of respondents finding that Lebanon is still far from achieving gender equality reveal an awareness of the prevalence of gender discrimination in the country. With reports of 1 out of 4 women experiencing sexual harassment,³² 91% of respondents decrying street calling and  harassment shows a high level of perceptiveness regarding this issue.

Lastly, a majority of the Generation What? respondents (79.2%) find there are too many drugs in Lebanon; this, again, tends to depict quite a contrasting portrait of youths in Lebanon, that can tend to reproduce prevailing “morals”, as shown in the next section.

5. Conservatism 2.0: The youth perpetuating conservative customs

Orientalist clichés on Lebanon tend to depict it as a liberal oasis in a conservative region. However, the Generation What? consultation illustrates the ubiquity of social customs and a rather conservative young generation. 78.6% of respondents consider that drugs are against their values, and only 12.2% do not partake in drug consumption but respect others’ choice to take drugs, revealing a rather strong stance against drug users and drug use in general. In contrast, only 29.9% of them find drinking alcohol against their values, and 31% do not drink alcohol but do not mind others who do.