“The aspirations of young people are essential to their human capital investment, educational choices and labour market outcomes.”
Poverty, despair and precariousness are commonly understood to deprive young people of significant opportunities, experiences and even freedom. The effects of poverty can extend beyond economic opportunities and deprive young people of their aspirations and leave psychological scars. And especially in the context of the massive current and future changes in labour markets around the world, a vitally important question is whether it is possible to enhance the beliefs and aspirations of young people – even those most economically marginalized – in a way that helps them overcome what life throws in their path? The answer is that, if it is possible to influence beliefs and aspirations in such a way as to lead to higher levels of labour market attainment, then appropriate policies can be developed.

As confirmed by recent trends analysis, young people in particular remain disadvantaged in the labour market. The transition from school to work is increasingly difficult, with the latest data putting the global youth unemployment rate at 13.6 per cent in 2020. Three out of four young workers are employed in the informal economy, especially in the developing parts of the world. Informal employment is one of the main factors behind a high incidence of working poverty among young people. According to International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates, more than a fifth of young people are not in employment, education or training, three-quarters of whom are women.
Compounding this situation is the fact that the world of work is changing rapidly, with technological and climate change altering the conditions of production and labour markets undergoing substantial shifts. The transformation of employment relations, expanding inequalities and economic stagnation greatly hamper the achievement of full employment and decent work for everyone.

If young people are to benefit from the changing nature of the world of work, they need to be prepared, both in terms of skills attainment and level of ambition and aspiration. The aspirations of young people are essential to their human capital investment, educational choices and labour market outcomes. When realistic aspirations combine with an individual’s sense of agency and a belief that change can occur through their own effort, and given the pathways and tools to support achievement, success can be the outcome.

Understanding aspirations is important when developing effective employment policies. If the career aspirations and life goals of youth are not considered, employment policies aiming to “match” skills with labour market opportunities may continue to fail young people. There is a fierce debate and a wide range of opinions regarding how new technologies are likely to affect employment opportunities. These range from a deep fear that jobs (or tasks within jobs) will be destroyed to a more general technological optimism that, ultimately, new technologies will create new jobs. Digitalization, automation and robotization are predicted to change the very nature of how we work. This is an important issue for all groups of people, but perhaps of most concern for today’s youth, who are either new to or entering the labour market. That said, young people have been exposed to some of today’s technologies from a younger age than older generations and may be more comfortable and competent with technology and therefore not feel as threatened by these new technologies as perhaps are older generations (see the earlier discussion in subsection 4.3). Examples of survey questions asking youth about their perceptions regarding technology and its implications are presented in Appendix B, table 6
This report was undertaken as part of the ILO Future of Work project and aims to (i) review the literature on the concepts and drivers of aspirations; (ii) develop a conceptual framework that relates labour market conditions to aspirations; (iii) map the existing survey-based evidence on the aspirations of youth worldwide; and (iv) provide insights into how to improve data collection, research and evidence-based policy-making related to young persons aspirations.
In particular, the objectives of this report are to:
● review the literature discussing the concepts of aspirations, beliefs, expectations, and the relations between them; ● understand the drivers and determinants of youth aspirations; ● provide a conceptual framework on how labour market policies and shocks affect aspirations; ● identify existing data sets and survey questions measuring aspirations and related concepts in the world of work; ● identify gaps in the evidence and provide recommendations for future aspirations data collection; ● formulate recommendations for aspirations-sensitive employment policies.

This review is structured as follows: section 2 provides information on the methodologies used to identify and select the relevant literature and data sources. Section 3 develops a theoretical framework based on scientific studies into the concept and determinants of aspiration. Section 4 turns to the world of work and highlights the current important challenges impacting youth aspirations worldwide. After presenting an overview of the survey-based data sources covering youth career aspirations and related concepts in section 5, section 6 presents key evidence of aspirations, mapping the global trends in youth aspirations as labour markets change. Section 7 concludes with recommendations for data collection and for the development of interventions that take account of aspirations in order to produce better labour market outcomes.