By Joan DeJaeghere and Consuelo Sánchez Bautista

Restrictions to mobility, used to ensure the security of health and wellbeing for many, have resulted in economic, social, and other kinds of physical insecurities for mobile youths.

Mobility is filled with contradictions, and these are particularly apparent in this time of shut-downs, lock-downs, travel restrictions, and closed borders related to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Rather than presuming a ubiquitous and celebratory ideal of mobility, we need to ask: Who is mobile for what reasons right now, and who isn’t?

As globalization has made travel and trade more ubiquitous, many white, middle/upper class Americans have taken this freedom of mobility for granted. Mobility is our physical ability and need to move from one place to another, but socio-economic status mediates different kinds of mobility. Those with their own car, a second home, or a yacht can move from one home to another, one country to another, one safe-haven to another. But many people don’t have the material and social means to be mobile and safe. For many, their economic situation requires them to travel considerable distance to earn a living, even one that is not dignified. Or, they are regarded as “essential” workers and they must travel for work. For many youths, mobility has long been a part of their lives as they move in the hopes of a better life. Now, COVID-19 has both limited this mobility and, at the same time, restricted even short-distance travel to satisfy basic needs such as food, shelter, security, education, or employment.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, a widely circulated opinion is that children and youth are among the less affected by COVID-19 compared to other groups. This idea has recently shifted as more youths are getting ill from the virus. In addition to the direct effects of the virus on youths’ health, much of the media coverage and data have not shown how young people’s wellbeing is likewise impacted by restrictions on mobility that are aimed to prevent or slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus. Youths already affected by structural inequalities, poverty, and conflict face a paradox of survival, decreasing mobility to prevent the spread of the virus and needing to be mobile to earn a basic living, evade poverty and conflict. And the effects of their limited mobility have longer term repercussions.

In most countries around the world, youths have higher unemployment rates than any other age-group. Disparities in employment rates are greater for young women than men; and for lower economic groups. Because of shifts in the global economic system in the past decades in which stable jobs are becoming rarer, with fewer benefits and health protections, youth are working more in the informal sector, nicely termed the ‘gig economy’. Economic growth that has occurred in Africa, India and Latin America is often on the backs of young people doing precarious work. For instance, in a study on youth livelihoods in East Africa before the pandemic, we found that many youths were only "getting by" five years after participating in livelihood and entrepreneurship training. They used mobility as a strategy – moving from rural to semi-urban and urban places to find jobs, get customers and seek better educational opportunities. This mobility, out-of-necessity, allowed them to work and pay for basic needs. But the pandemic has limited the mobility needed just to get by, and their lives have become even more precarious.

In Latin America, where unemployment and informality are common situations for youth, government responses to COVID -19 have complicated access to temporary, part-time, and informal jobs. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) estimates that, as one of the pandemic’s impacts, some formal jobs might become informal, limiting youth’s access to social security and health services. Informal youth workers have been affected by the immobility measures implemented due to the pandemic. In Colombia, for example, where 47% of the people were working in informal sectors as of December 2019, restrictions on mobility have impacted street vendors, who depend on people’s circulation to earn for their daily survival. Furthermore, tourism, transport, and delivery, often services for the middle-class, are possible because of youth labor, which is now restricted. For instance, numerous Venezuelan migrants, who mostly worked in informal economies in countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, have been returning to Venezuela due to the lack of access to the already precarious jobs they had before the pandemic. This situation has left them without the means to pay for rent and food.

Mobility has been a livelihood strategy for youth whose efforts to build sustainable livelihoods in places of origin have been thwarted by structural inequalities, war, violence, and lack of employment opportunities. For Syrian refugees, whose lives are often in limbo between states in conflict and those that don’t allow them to work, the lockdown has limited possibilities of making a daily living and even compelled them to reduce the amount of food they consume. Forced immobility has created or exacerbated other risks for the already vulnerable youths. However, survival is an unstoppable driving force, and, interestingly, mobility as a livelihood strategy persists despite restrictions on it. Youths’ limited access to earning income amidst the pandemic has generated returning movements to places of origin where relatives or friends might offer access to shelter and a care.

The ‘freedom’ to be mobile (travelling for leisure) and immobile (staying and working from home) are a luxury for some, but for many youths, mobility is a livelihood strategy, necessary to survive and to develop one’s futures. Restrictions on mobility, used to ensure the health and wellbeing of many, have resulted in economic, social, and physical insecurities (home violence, food insecurity, and housing insecurity) for the world's most vulnerable people. For youths, these temporary and potentially protracted changes will have considerable effects on their sense of self and wellbeing, their economic and social independence, and their trajectories into adulthood. We should all be concerned about their futures and they should be heard and participate in the decisions that would impact their present and future lives.

About the authors

Joan DeJaeghere is a Professor of Comparative and International Development Education at the University of Minnesota. Her professional work focuses on redressing educational inequalities to foster sustainable livelihoods, wellbeing and inclusive citizenship for youths.

Consuelo Sánchez Bautista is a doctoral student in comparative international development education at the University of Minnesota. Her research explores the relationships among education, forced migration, and inclusion in conflict-affected zones, particularly in Latin America.