By 1975, with urbanization and literacy growing steadily, 60 percent of the population was under the age of twenty-four. While these youth, who hailed mostly from families that had recently moved to the cities, had access to education thanks to the reforms instituted by the secular nationalists, they had few opportunities for economic advancement. In some cases, states offered jobs to new graduates and were able to absorb a number of them into roles as state bureaucrats. Yet even this avenue became tenuous as IMF policies of liberalization and government cuts instituted in countries like Egypt and Algeria lowered salaries for intellectual bureaucrats, who then had to find second jobs as taxi drivers or night watchmen to survive.

XREF: Connects to IMF liberalization policies as a driver of youth underemployment across Egypt and Algeria.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 340