The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, CEPAL, elaborated a study where the characteristics and perspectives of the young Latin American and Caribbean people are examined. The analysis points out which is the contribution made by the adolescents to the societies that claim to be developed, fair and democratic and which are the difficulties that impede their increased participation. The following are reflections and backgrounds highlighted by the document.

-To achieve total unanimity about how to classify the young population turns out to be difficult because it includes aspects that go beyond the simple division of the age.

-In the past, one could easily and without question distinguish the differences between an adolescent and an adult because entering the world of the adults implied complying with certain activities within the economic, job, family, social, cultural and political environment. Contrarily today one observes for instance, that a lot of the adolescents solely participate in economy.

-The world is characterized by a growth of population, a fast globalisation and technical innovations - all cores of the development. Facing these, the youth should have a predominant role since it is much easier for them to keep up with the rhythm. But paradoxically, the youth is being socially excluded.

-On the world's scale there are unpublished numbers of juvenile unemployment. The principle cause of this disaster is that demand is higher than the offer of capable young workers. And the latter is due to the common low incomes of the families that do not establish education as a priority. Therefore the number of the adolescents that obtain the capacity to adapt to the new production demands reduces.

-In accordance with the estimations of the Population Department of the CEPAL, CELADE, almost 80% of the young people of this region live in urban areas and the majority in poor conditions. The latter problem could be due to insufficient actions and initiative of the state and the families that don't allow the adolescents to obtain knowledge about the innovations that they need in order to be productive.

-On the other hand, leaving school before legal age gives way to the adolescents to advance their economic independence so that they turn into parents earlier than those who go for further education. Therefore the urban young people of low economic stratum suffer a social isolation because their life shuts them in their poor homogeneous community where examples of success based on effort are neither near nor visible. And so they don't have the chance to be influenced that would show them that there is a better existence far away from those negative elements like drug consumption, violence, gangs and hooliganism.

-It is within the low socioeconomic stratum where population grows most. In this demographic sector the cases of young mothers, abandoned studies and rapid emancipation is abundant. The constantly increasing number of the poor that don't seek education affects the maintenance of a fair development because they are not able to go with the flow of the economic and productive development in the societies.

-On the other hand, the women of the middle and high stratum postpone their independence and orientate their family plans according to the socioeconomic situation because they want to offer their children a better life than their own one and encourage them to achieve better living conditions.

-Public education suffered a decline that provoked to seek education on the private road in order to face the future and the new conditions of the economy. Education became segmented with the consequence that public education offers less financial support and increases the opening of private education that again forbid the students of limited resources the chance to frequently contact other students of the middle and high stratum because of their own status and origin. This way the young and poor people are deprived of getting to know the habits of studying, of learning discipline, of having expectations and motivations on which the ones that live in a cultivated and educated environment count as they see it as something natural to seek for higher education. The bad quality of public education, as a consequence, increases the frustration among the young that receive it.

-During the decade of the 90ies, six out of every ten job offers corresponded to the informal sector according to the studies of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This way the outlook for the young to achieve a stable job with social insurance and safeguard through the trade unions were dispelled. Consequently, a considerable number of people stretched the dependency on their homes, joined the job market only through short term or illicit job contracts and associated with others that found themselves in the same situation.

-According to the studies of the CEPAL (Economic Commission for Latin America), the unemployment and underemployment in this region increases especially among women and adolescents.

-In most countries, youth unemployment is three times higher than unemployment among adults. Furthermore this disaster frequently presents itself among the young that haven't received education and come from the sectors of limited resources.

-More than 60% of the procreation takes place among the age group of 15 to 29, the stage where the individuals are just about starting to form their ideas and future plans.

-In this region most women younger than 20 have already started their sex life.

-The conditions in which the young people live their sexuality are usually adverse due to their lack of experience and little psychological and emotional maturity to face the complex. The latter creates a serious risk of untimely pregnancies and venereal diseases for not knowing about the forms of prevention.

-The fact that sexual relationships during teen years or extramarital sexual contacts are socially criticised, entails that the adolescents conceal their sexual relationships from their elders. Therefore they do not have access to the means that allow regulating fertility. All this stands in contrast to the increased publication of messages by the media communication that encourages the practice of sexuality apart from procreation.

-The little access to information about sexual health reflects in compared investigations with Europe.

-More than 15% of the 18 or 19 year old girls of Latin America and the Caribbean have become mothers before this age whereas in Europe the percentage doesn't exceed 5%.

-Although fertility concentrates on the youth, the rate has dropped during the last 30 years within the general birth-rate decline in this region.

-In some countries the delay of getting married entails a belated sexual initiation.

-An emphasized precedent is that the children of young mothers present the highest index of "desirability". This could be originated in the girl's yearning for gaining a space within the family, in finding their own identity, in leaving home because of a set marriage as a consequence of pregnancy or because being a mother becomes the only project of life. Nevertheless, this situation that a lot of girls are confronted with causes to abandon education and reduce the time for formative activities. This again affects the social mobility because it means to dispose of less human capital.

-Another negative aspect is that young women that live in worst poverty have more children than the usual average of the countries and of the women of a high socioeconomic stratum.

-Most of the nations of Latin America, more than 80% of the young women living in poverty have started their sexual relations before the age of 20 indicating that comprehensive health services that cover sexuality and reproduction are needed within the sectors of limited resources.

-The socio-cultural modernization embodied by the better educated young people favoured the backward state of sexuality/reproduction/marriages. Nevertheless, the fact that the better educated young people would be the ones showing a higher index of premarital sexual initiation and the regulation of fertility, supports the hypothesis that the socio cultural modernization brings a new and a more permissive sexual culture along but at the same time a culture that will be better educated about the forms of preventing an unwanted pregnancy.

-Another interesting aspect is that most Latin American and Caribbean young people do know about the modern contraceptives. Nevertheless, their use is only found among those who live in stable socioeconomic conditions. Although, despite the efforts done in various nations, there is still a lack of knowledge about the sexual diseases and about how to prevent them, especially regarding AIDS. For example, two out of three young Guatemalan people do not even know this illness.

The educational challenges are:

1. Generalize the access to basic and intermediate education.

2. Assure adequate standards of quality and performance in schools, facing the problems of the learning process and leaving school before legal age.

3. Reinforce the capability to "learn to learn" in view of the accelerated technical innovations.

4. Create conditions in order to avoid "cybernetic illiteracy" and improve the fairness between the social groups in order to achieve homogeneous education. The educational accomplishments will allow the young people to manage and steer their sexuality with a lot more responsibility through formulating goals for social integrity and through deciding well about their couple relationship regarding when and how many children they will have.

-It is necessary to create a "civil income" that guarantees a minimum wage to be able to exist.

-Provide training parallel to the development of first experiences in order to counteract two of the principle factors of juvenile unemployment: the lack of experience and the lack of training.

-Build bridges that enable the contact between the formal education system (in its intermediate level) and the productive structure.

-Create public agencies that operate like chains transmitting information between the worlds of activity and business. The training most successful is the one that contains programs that focus on the more vulnerable youth sectors and that operate decentralizing, for instance, on part of the municipalities, including the one that executes with antitrust, meaning to provide space for public and private help, with vigilance and evaluation.

-Impulse the creation of micro business, although a high percentage of young people already participates in these.

-It is at the stage of youth where the feelings of citizenship or membership are consolidated in a nation as a central element to form the own identity. There is a high influence by the experience which is shared within the sectors where the young people grow up.

-There is still a persisting sharp residential segregation in the big cities that provokes a social exclusion of the young people of the sectors of limited resources because it is the boys of this stratum that are especially qualified as "second citizens".

-The social politics should consider actions regarding territorial organization in the cities in order to homogenize them.

-The fact that a lot of young people that have a couple relationship keep living with the parents of one - because of missing means - housing programs need to be reinforced because obtaining a own place for living constitutes a central node within the projects of emancipation and juvenile autonomy.

-Something essential for the social integrity of the young people is especially their participation in city politics that strengthens democracy. This should be encouraged through attractive programs in which they learn their civic rights and musts. With that one counteracts the loss of credibility towards the political leaders because they won't feel manipulated anymore and will perceive the weight of their participation in taking decisions concerning their country.

-Juvenile representation also needs to be revitalized and bureaucracy stiles need to be removed and excessively politicised. At last, they need to be encouraged to participate in any form and at a high scale like, for example in companies that fight poverty, illiteracy or defend the natural environment.