Nepali and Bhutanese disconnected youth need our attention

We tend to always talk about how South Asian young adults are succeeding, but is that always the case? Data shows that over 1 in 10 Nepali and Bhutanese youth ages 16 to 24 are neither working or in school.

And while the percentage of disconnected youth for our different nationalities has declined between 2000 and 2019, for Nepali youth, they have actually increased between 2010-2019. There was not a large enough population size to determine the percentage of Bhutanese disconnected youth in earlier years.

What is interesting about these stats, and a common trend we have been seeing throughout our discussions, is that immigrants tend to have higher percentages of disconnected youth, compared to their US-born counter parts.

Institutional and systemic barriers contribute to disparities in educational attainment for immigrants, which also varies by immigration status. Disparities in educational attainment also vary by nationality, as different immigrant communities face unique sets of institutional and systemic challenges like language access.

A basic google search did not identify many social services to address the needs of these communities. We will delve into this issue in future blog posts.