Do Afghan Youth Think of Migrating to other Countries under the Taliban Regime?

Barlas, Ahmad Walid and Ammar, Abdullah (2022): Do Afghan Youth Think of Migrating to other Countries under the Taliban Regime?

Abstract

Migration of Afghans, particularly the young generation made headlines, when the Taliban took power in Afghanistan. Many countries including the USA, Germany, UK, Canada and Australia brought major changes in assessing documents of Afghan asylum seekers at risk. This paper studies the opinion of Afghan youth migrating under the Taliban regime. We surveyed 280 youth in Balkh and Samangan provinces of Afghanistan. The respondents were selected using convenience and snow balling sampling strategies. The administrated questionnaire consisted of three main segments such as demographic characteristics, financial condition and migration. The findings expose that 91% of the respondents think of migrating to other countries. Furthermore, they confirmed insecurity, unemployment, dissatisfaction with the Taliban and exposing restrictions on women activities by the Taliban as the key drivers of their desire to emigrate. The majority of the youth surveyed (83%) consider regular migration channels in particular family reunion, study visa, humanitarian and labor visas. Even so, 17% of young people think of migrating through irregular channels. A significant proportion of the respondents (40%) selected Germany as a de-sired country of their destination among other options. This paper makes recommendations for improving the job market and providing better security services to discourage young people from leaving the country.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Young people, migration factor, migration channel and the Taliban regime
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers

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