How Tunisia Threw its Youth in the Sea

In the field of socioeconomic research, following the ever-increasing rate of globalisation, the studied phenomenon of “brain drain” has become increasingly prevalent. This is the colloquial term for human capital flight, which is defined as the emigration or immigration of highly skilled individuals seeking better living standards and higher wages. Tunisia, an economically stagnant country with most of its GDP vested in education, stands tall, ongoing for the past 13 years, as a paradigm of this concept. 

According to a 2023 survey conducted Sigma Conseil, the leading statistical research and consultancy company in Tunisia and Algeria, over 75% of Tunisians aged 18-30 have the desire to leave the country: 

“64,5 percent of young people seek better economic opportunities abroad, 50,5 percent want to escape unemployment and economic instability, while 46,7 percent aspire to a better life abroad”. 

A high fraction of those seeking better economic opportunities abroad include those in technology and healthcare industries: for example, every year, over 3,000 young IT engineers leave Tunisia for Europe, where wages can be up to 2.5 times higher.” A 2017 article by the Arab Weekly describes that “Attracted by higher wages and better career options, 94,000 highly skilled Tunisians have left the country in the last six years, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said.”  

This seems like no surprise given that youth unemployment rate in Tunisia stood at 38.8 percent by Q1 2023. But why is this number so high? What is creating all the push factors for Tunisians to leave the country and why is the youth especially hit so hard? The answers to these questions are multifaceted and complex but this article seeks to look at these factors: the increased difficulty of employment; the disappointment of the education system; the pessimism following the 2011 Jasmine revolution.

Difficulty of employment:

“Tunisia is one of the few countries in the world where a higher level of education decreases employability.” 

This was the conclusive report made by the world bank circa 2011, post-revolution, when describing the opportunity employments for post-graduate youths. Unfortunately, this statement is a concise and resounding truth. In urban areas of Tunisia- where post graduate students are of the highest concentration- unemployment rates are appallingly high for individuals with tertiary education: 30% (in 2020), a resounding margin for this individual demographic when you consider that the unemployment rate of Tunisians wholly is 16-17%. More importantly, the unemployment rates of those only a primary certificate was significantly lower at 10%, and those with no educational degree even lower: 6%. 

Why is this the case? 

There are several reasons that all link back to Tunisia’s lack of economic reform and,  subsequently, poor market structure. The Tunisian economy is not generating enough jobs that require high skilled labour or university degrees, in neither the public nor private sector. The erstwhile is due to government hiring freezes whilst the latter is due to the lack of FDI in the Tunisian economy. Foreign companies are discouraged from doing business in Tunisia due to its “Low Doing Business” score ranked by the world bank: 78^th out of 190^th. Tunisian employers also feel that people graduate from universities without any transferable or tangible skills for the workforce (we will delve into this in the section on educational disappointment); therefore, hiring a student from tertiary education or secondary is only perceived as the difference of choosing between two equally skilled workers where one will demand a higher wage for their degree, decreasing incentive in employers to higher educated workers. And thus, the majority of the jobs being generated by the Tunisian economy are low wage jobs that pay disappointingly less then what graduates expect for their labour, and what employers expect they wanted: creating a psychological restriction on both fronts. 

Felhi, a top student at Tunis’s National School of architecture and Urbanism who left Tunisia as she found her skills were more valued elsewhere (junior architects in Tunisia generally make $320 a month) explicitly spells out the problem: 

“The living and working conditions of the highly skilled as well as the number of hours at work reflect some form of exploitation that has resulted in the current brain waste. Some conditions are unacceptable in terms of remuneration, the recognition of qualifications and the professional standing of some highly skilled workers,” 

This is only a subset of the larger issue with employment practices in Tunisia: it is hard to get a job generally. During qualitative focus group discussions hosted by the world bank circa 2011, the following factors were considered by young Tunisians (19-29) as the most common practices in influencing recruitment: Connections, nepotism, bribery, and regionalism. 53.6% of rural youth and 62.6% of urban youth underscored their perceived importance of having pre-established connections to enter the workforce, which suggests the difficulty for regular civilians, particularly those originating from non-urban backgrounds to break into the workforce. This inequality in opportunity speaks to the hopelessness among the youth in their job opportunities (see fig 3.11) 

Disappointment from the education system:

Much of the Tunisian youth feels let down by the education system and its failure in secondary school enrolments especially to provide essential structures that would help students develop transferrable skills and provide career guiding opportunities. Education is a corner stone of Tunisia’s societal structure, becoming one of its trademarks after claiming external independence from France: the gross enrolment rate in secondary schools for examples is 93%. Yet despite these high rates, educational outcomes are consistently weak across the country, where a TIMSS survey indicates that 75% of youth perform “low” or worse in mathematics grades and Tunisia preforms much lower than similar income countries across northern Africa (Mullis et al. 2012). Not only is the schooling system weak in its own purpose but, moreover, career counselling is very limited in schools at secondary and tertiary levels; therefore, meaning students lack guidance on critical career and CV decisions. According to the Brookings Institution access to education in Tunisia “has bene implemented at the expense of the training quality”. All this compiled seems to suggest a failure on the part of the education system to impart life skills and knowledge that would expedite the students transition to the work place, and this failure makes its mark in recruitment industries.  

The lack of necessary and advisory structures unfortunately makes its mark on Tunisia’s youth: and this disappointment is well summed up in the statements of  Gala-ali:

“People told us in order to get a job you need to get a degree first, but people do have degrees and even with that they are not getting employment,” Gala-Ali noted. “Tunisian schools do not prepare you to be employed and do not equip you with the necessary skills that a 21st century employee needs to have.” 

This failure in education system is a symptom of the economic stagnation in Tunisia which has confounded a similar repercussive stagnation in schooling. It is not due to a lack of funding, as Tunisia continues to spend one of the highest shares of its GDP in education, but rather a lack economic reform and forward thinking by Tunisian governors. Mehdi Cherif, coordinator of Fahmologia, sums this well:

“I would like to see an educational system that is empowered by economic reforms,” Cherif said. “We have to reduce unemployment…inequality of conditions…so that every Tunisian student can explore his or her interest, be it in philosophy, art or medicine, without fearing for their future. We must allow them to contribute as much as they want and as much as they can to society.”  

The disappointment following the Jasmine revolution:

This paper will attempt to explain the primary reason behind Tunisia’s economic flatline simply, to avoid straying away from the crux of the issue: which will result in a gross but necessary oversimplification. 

In January 2011, Tunisia saw the Jasmine revolution or the Tunisian revolution of dignity, in which they overthrew the dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in a 28-day campaign incentivised by their lack of political freedoms, high inflation and unemployment rates and poor living standards. Following this came a restart at democracy in Tunisia. Unfortunately, as standard in a nascent democracy, the new politicians were too insecure in their positions of power to introduce the drastic economic reforms necessary to reverse the devastating effects of dictatorship on the economy, in fear of being voted out. Thus, no reform was seen for over a decade, allowing for the slow flatline and decline of Tunisia’s economy. This hit the youth of Tunisia brutally as it set the precedent that they would never any change in the socioeconomic situation of their country. After the revolution brought forth democracy and started the Arab Spring, many Tunisians youths, at the time, were hopeful about their economic future: anxious for the economic prosperity traditionally promised by democracy. However, as explained, due to poor governance (among other factors, of course) economic prosperity did not follow and unemployment just continued to increase. This had devastating effects on Tunisia’s political climate, but more relevantly, created the pervasive and brutal sense of pessimism still prevalent in Tunisia today. While the revolution was nearly a decade ago, Tunisians still refer to it as a driving force for their leaving the country, demonstrating how this culture of disappointment still lingering is collectively moving educated Tunisians to leave their country.