Waithood (a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsadulthood An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majo ...

") is a period of stagnation in the lives of young

unemployed Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

graduates in various industrializing and

developing nations A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreeme ...

or regions, primarily in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

(

MENA MENA, an acronym in the English language, refers to a grouping of countries situated in and around the Middle East and North Africa. It is also known as WANA, SWANA, or NAWA, which alternatively refers to the Middle East as Western Asia (or a ...

) and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, where their expertise is still not widely needed or applicable. "Waithood" is described as "a kind of prolonged adolescence", and "the bewildering time in which large proportions of

youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Yo ...

spend their best years waiting". It is a phase in which the difficulties youth face in each of these interrelated spheres of life result in a debilitating state of helplessness and dependency. One commentator argues that waithood can be best understood by examining outcomes and linkages across five different sectors:

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

, employment, housing,

credit Credit (from Latin verb ''credit'', meaning "one believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt) ...

, and

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...

. The neologism was coined in 2007 by political scientist Diane Singerman. Waithood is applicable only to college educated people who are not compelled to settle in blue collar jobs due to support from family elders or resources. Due to the lack of any potential employment, waithood is also tangentially related to rising rate of belated parenthood in various developing countries, with younger people choosing or being forced to delay starting their own families, which was uncommon in the modern industrialized countries when they were developing.Hilary_Silver
,_"Social_Exclusion:_Comparative_Analysis_of_Europe_and_Middle_East_Youth".html" ;"title="Hilary Silver">Hilary Silver
, "Social Exclusion: Comparative Analysis of Europe and Middle East Youth"">Hilary Silver">Hilary Silver
, "Social Exclusion: Comparative Analysis of Europe and Middle East Youth" Middle East Youth Initiative Working Paper (September 2007)

References

External links

Fountain of Youth
''Gulf News'', January 2008
Young and Out of Work in the Middle East
ABC News, December 2007
Mohamed Ali: The link between unemployment and terrorism

TED talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

November 2013 Unemployment Economy of the Middle East North African culture Neologisms 2007 establishments {{econ-problem-stub