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2

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Introduction The relationship between civic participation and social inclusion is especially important for early marginalize-groups, such as ethnic minorities and especially young people, who are often considered as apathetic, disengaged and socially excluded group. Concerns about reduced civic participation of young people is the subject of numerous studies and public policy and, for decades, this condition is seen as a crisis, as increased youth not participating, especially at elections (EC, 2013; UNDP, 2012a, 2012b), threatening the democratic society and representative democracy. Young people in the new globalized world of digital media is assessed as a group that do not understand the importance of public policies and the traditional civic activism; they are a group that sees no benefit from them (Bennett, Wells, & Rank, 2007. Thus, young people are assessed as non-integrated in the "adult society" or socially excluded (Dejaeghere & Hooghe, 2009; Harris, Wyn, & Younes, 2010). Not all authors are concerned about the decline in youth civic engagement. Many believe that while young people do not participate in their communities in the traditional sense of the word (eg., by voting in elections or participate in political parties), "offset" with new, progressive ideas and behaviors, especially through new media and through street performances, volunteerism and protests (Bennett, et al., 2007; Dejaeghere & Hooghe, 2009; Jois & Toppe, 2005). These authors argue that the youth contributions redefined its political style of action comparing the in-place conventional types of citizen participation, they participate in new activities, for example, volunteering at the local level, consumerist activism, supporting global causes participation in international activities and creating global civil society through participation in social networks and forums. (Bennett, et al., 2007; Cohen, 2005; Dejaeghere & Hooghe, 2009; O’Toole & McDonagh, 2003; Zaff, et al., 2010). The Republic of Macedonia (R.M.), as a state member of the Former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and afterwards one of its successor, raised its young generations for most of the past century with the mantra “A country with these young people should not be afraid of its future”. Yet in the years since its independence a new mantra has become more accepted, “The youngsters are the future of our society”. Led by this new framing, many public officials continued to hold the power in our country while almost nobody has promoted the idea that perhaps young people are not only the future of our society but are moreover a pillar of our country today. After more than 20 years of transitioning to a democratic society integrated in the EU and NATO, a lot of youngsters are frustrated with all the injustice that has occurred over the years and having to prove themselves as an important part of Macedonian society. Many of them see themselves as part of some other place in the world, and unfortunately many of them have left Macedonia forever. Those who have stayed. have simply decided to act on their own and in various manners. The actions of youth have become increasingly visible over the last 4 years. Therefore, we suggest a new maxim for youth in our society: “I never hope. Hope is for lazy people. I am acting!”

I. POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: Political participation of youth in Macedonia from the angle of the existing policy and legal framework that is considered as the most relevant, we should be aware of different indicators which are “equal puzzles of the whole mosaic”. Therefore, in order to achieve the purpose of this research it is quite appropriate to state the most significant facts for each indicator. These statements will lead us to see the overall picture for political participation of youth and enable us to give better recommendations on the basis of the conclusions.

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http://civicengagement.mk/

I. SOCIAL PARTICIPATION:

In order to have a variety of information about the social participation of youth in Macedonia, about the related policy and legal framework, and also regarding political participation, we should keep in mind different indicators and crucial facts for each indicator with the aim of developing better recommendations in this field.

*http://civicengagement.mk/

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I. ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION:

For the economic inclusion of youth, which is one of the biggest problems in Macedonia, we reach our conclusions by looking at the official statistics of the State Bureau of Statistics and The Employment Agency of Republic of Macedonia through different indicators

a. POLITICAL PARTICIPATION:

1. Youth participation in elections:

The conventional measure of citizens’ participation is voter-turnout for elections. The last elections in Macedonia have happened in December 2016 and data for youth participation at these elections are still not available. However the last information about youth participation is during our country’s parliamentary elections in 2014, a survey was conducted with 350 youth about their use of their right to vote. The results are as follows:1

Many youths are members of political parties (26%). It is important to note that larger percentages of party members are from small municipalities and villages and that most of them became members in the last few years. This fact and the fact that 33% of youth are both members of a political party and a civil society organization (CSO) is something that should concern our society.2

2. Youth participation in government (ministers)

1 Research “Youth and Elections” done by Institute for youth development KULT, 2014 2 Survey named “Youth’ needs and youth participation” published by SEGA

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According to the Law on Organization and Operation of State Administrative Bodies, there are 15 ministries established in Macedonia. At the moment there is still not formed government in the country and no information when that will happened.

3. Young people nominated/elected to municipalities (mayors, members of municipal councils)

In our country there are 84 municipalities from which 33 are in urban areas, 41 are in rural areas, and 10 are part of the City of Skopje3. In addition, the City of Skopje has been established as a special unit of self-government.4 The main bodies of each municipality are the Mayor and the Council, which can have between 9 and 33 members, depending on the population of the municipality.5 The Council of the City of Skopje is composed of 45 members elected directly by the citizens.6 The last information about the elected youth mayor the data shown is that only 3 mayors from the existing 84 are under the age 35 or 1,25 %.

4. Young people nominated/elected to the parliament When we consider what is published publicly, in the current composition of the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia is still not available on their web page however the existing data shown that 10 MPs are under the age of 35, i.e. youth, from a total number of 120 MPs, meaning 8,3%.7

3 Law on territorial division of the municipalities of the Republic of Macedonia 4 Law on the Self-Government and Law on City of Skopje 5 Law on the Self-Government 6 Law on City of Skopje 7KaltrinaAzizi – member of Party - Democratic Union for Integration (part of the ruling coalition) is 25 years old http://www.sobranie.mk/democratic-union-for-integration-2014-ns_article-kaltrina-azizi-2014-en.nspx; and Stefan Bogoev – member of Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (part of the opposition) is 26 years old http://www.sobranie.mk/segashen-sostav-ns_article-stefan-bogoev-14.nspx, nevertheless in the procedure for free access to public information, the State Election Commission replied to our question “how many youth aged between 18 and 30 were nominated and how many were elected in the LAST parliamentary elections” that 389 were nominated in total by all political parties and 8 of them were elected and became MPs (on the website there are only 2)!?

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5. Young people participating in general assemblies for parliamentary parties

When we speak about the participation of youth in parliamentary parties or the broader concept of ‘participation of youth in decision-making process’, we should first address the issue of the political parties’ election programs and to what extent youth politics is present in these. On this line, during the last parliamentary elections in Macedonia in 2014, taking into consideration the 11 indicators defined by the European Youth Forum and the programs of the 8 largest political parties, the following results emerged:8

The results shown in the table are negative for youth, when one considers that only a few political parties were planning more than 3 measures and only in a few of the youth indicators, not in all of them.

6. Structure of Youth Council (national, local) The National Youth Council of Macedonia (NYCM) is the nation-wide umbrella organization representing organized youth in Macedonia. NYCM gathers 67 organizations: 27 youth organizations, 18 organizations for youth, 2 national youth union organizations, 10 youth wings of political parties and 10 associate member organizations united to promote and advocate for youth rights in Macedonia. From existing 84 municipalities, 66 of them confirmed that they poses youth councils on local level or 78, 57%

7. Online channels (Facebook, Twitter, website, potential online forms of contacts) for government/municipalities/parliament

8 Analysis published by National Youth Council, 2016

Indicators for youth

PP with 0 measures

PP with 1-2 measures

PP with 3-4 measures

PP with 5-6

measures

PP with more

measures

Informal education

3 3 / 1 1

Trainings 4 1 2 1 /

Legislation 2 1 / / 5

Budget 2 1 3 / 2

Informing 5 1 1 1 /

Decentralization of the politics

3 5 / / /

Researching 7 1 / / /

Inclusion 3 4 / / /

Inter-ministry cooperation

8 / / / /

Innovation 3 2 1 / 2

Advisory Boards 3 4 / / /

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When we search about young people using the internet for accessing or posting opinions on websites for discussing civic and political issues, we note that 34% of youth led by their right to freedom of expression are not afraid of commenting on these issues on the internet (68% of them are men), 29% of youth don’t feel uncomfortable giving political statements online, but 18% of them have feelings like these i.e. feel uncomfortable giving political statements online. Also the “general perception” is that youth very often use their Twitter profiles, as well as Facebook profiles (but quite rarely in comparison with Twitter), to share their views and opinions about current political issues (during the last year these kinds of issues are almost part of everyday life for many youngsters in Macedonia). Also, there are some rare cases when politicians make video statements towards all citizens (from which the biggest number are young people as users of internet) or there are events which are transmitted live on YouTube channels (usually CSOs’ events which are part of the implementation of some project). Nevertheless, the majority of politicians have their own fan page on Facebook (especially those holding public functions as ‘the youngest generation’ of ministers, for example).9

8. Ratio of youth CSOs out of the total number of CSOs In Macedonia there are around 4,000 CSOs.10 If we take into consideration only the youth sector, there are two types of CSOs:

(1) CSOs with one target group – youths as the only group (49%); and (2) CSOs that deal with multiple targets including youths (34,55%).11

Furthermore, youth CSOs tend to choose the following as their main priorities: education, culture, then human rights and lastly economy. Youth also have the chance to participate in environmental CSOs (there are a few of them that are very active), but one of the issues that should be solved in the near future is networking on the regional and EU level.12 In the past 2 years there has been progress in networking among CSOs on local and national levels, a trend which is accepted by all stakeholders, because it produces collaboration instead of competition.13 Having in mind that 64% of youngsters believe that youth CSOs only partially bring progress to the situation of youths, this is an area of potential improvement. Furthermore, the fact that we emphasized above, that 33% of youth are both members of a political party and a CSO, is something that our society should make efforts to overcome as soon as possible through different methods lobbying and advocacy. This is problematic, because it could be interpreted as a kind of conflict of interest, especially since the essence of CSOs is somehow to be a corrector of the government, no matter which political elites are currently governing.

Any advances in legal framework/institutional/policy making According to Draft Law for Youth from 2011 (which is still not incorporated into our legislation), among other aspects, it was suggested that a State Youth Council be established by the Parliament of the R.M. which would serve as an umbrella organization for all youth. However, this idea, as well as many others

9 However, we need more time and resources to gain more data on this indicator as it is an indicator that has changed rapidly from year to year because of easier internet accessibility for new generations of youngsters 10 Their status is defined by the Law on civil society organizations and foundations 11 Survey named “Youth needs and youth participation” published by SEGA 12 National Youth Council is in a good position to become a full member of the European Youth Forum, but also Macedonian Youth have their representatives in the co-management decision-making process under the Council of Europe. For the environmental NGOs this should be a priority because it is one of the priorities of Europe 2020. 13 One of the ‘motives’ for networking on the national level is the IPA Mechanism and PRAG which is some calls for proposals suggest, but is some call for proposals order networking among CSOs.

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problematic ideas, have been contested by youth since they are not in line with the recommendations of the Council of Europe.14 This idea would simply replace the lack of proper legislation up to now with the National Strategy for Youths 2016-202515, the Strategic Plan of the Ministry for Education and Science and a few Local Strategies for Youths adopted by the Councils of some municipalities (such as the Municipalities of Gazi Baba, Center, Strumica, Shtip and others). Positive examples are the Local Youth Councils in these municipalities, which were established on the basis of said Local Strategies for Youth and are free to be members of the National Council for Youth. However, establishing Local Youth Councils at the whole territory of R.M. should be based on recommendation of the Council of Europe from 2001 which stated: “…inflexible solutions should be avoided and space for experimenting should be enabled with priority for enhancing instead of establishing rules; and as a result of above mentioned, wide specter of instruments for inclusion to be established, as well as a possibility for their combination and to adjust the way of their usage depends of conditions. On sub-local level to be founded bodies which should be composed by direct elected youngsters with advisory role and helping in spreading information to youth and with possibility for enforcement competences.”

***Impediments to youth political participation In Macedonian society there are a lot of examples of impediments to youth participation. Most of these come from the public authorities, which are significantly influential in public opinion and produce obstacles to youth inclusion. The most popular examples that are common knowledge and do not even require proof in front of the court, because they are widely recognized by the public, are:

- For more than 5 years the state hasn’t accepted suggestions by youth to finally adopt the Law for Youth. Furthermore, at the last minute the state refused to take into consideration suggestions given by youngsters for the Strategy 2016-2025;

- The State Agency for Youth and Sport revises its budget every year, and all funds are transferred to the field of sport, so no money is available for the implementation of projects for youth participation;

- Many obstacles are also visible if we take the statistics shown in the table above on page 4 of this document.

***RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLITICAL PARTICIPATION:

The Ministry for Youth to be established with an Agency for Youth and an Agency for Sport as separately functioning bodies;

Law for Youth and all future youth-related legislation to be adopted with all the recommendations and suggestions given by youth;

Youth to speak with “united voice” in order to achieve their common goals when dealing with issues of their common concern;

Motivating youth to participate more in all levels and aspects for their own benefit;

14 Research published by Re-actor and Youth Educational Forum, 2011 15 Despite the consultations that were done with youth representatives during the preparation process, the Strategy was adopted quickly and without taking into consideration most of the suggestions of youth. Also different aspects of life that concern youth (e.g. education, health, culture etc.) are regulated by proper laws such as: Law on Secondary Education, Law on Higher Education, Law on health care, Law on volunteering, Law on local self-government, Law on family etc.

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b. SOCIAL PARTICIPATION: In order to have a variety of information about the social participation of youth in Macedonia, about the related policy and legal framework, and also regarding political participation, we should keep in mind different indicators and crucial facts for each indicator with the aim of developing better recommendations in this field.

1. Percentage of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET rate)

It is very hard to have correct statistics in Macedonia on this issue (as with most other issues) – a country where the last population census was conducted 14 years ago…16 According to the last estimates at the end of 2012 of the State Bureau for Statistics – in Macedonia there are 465.002 youth aged 18 to 30, or 23% of the whole population. The latest data show us that the unemployment rate of youth is around 48% and the unemployment rate of all people of working age is around 28%, a substantial difference and a very high rate itself. F.17 In order to gather detailed data on the percentage of young people that are not employed, are without education and are not currently in training, we need more time and resources. The UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights in its Report from June 2016 stated: “The Committee is concerned at the disproportionately low labor participation and employment rates among women, particularly Roma women and ethnic Albanian women, as well as at the predominance of women in unskilled/underpaid jobs and positions. It is also concerned at the absence of active employment measures targeted at women and the insufficient level of implementation of the 2012 Law on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men and the National Strategy for Gender Equality 2013-2020. It is further concerned at the large gender pay gap in the State party (arts. 3 and 7).”

2. Percentage of young people at risk of poverty (UN Criteria) The crucial problem with this issue is not just whether young people are at risk of poverty but whether they are at risk while employed or not employed. Having in mind the official statistics from 2011 that 54% of the people in Macedonia that are in poverty are employed, in comparison with the 46% of poor people that are not employed, the logical conclusion is that also a larger percentage of the youth that

16 In the Last Report for Macedonia from June 2016, the UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights stated: “The Committee regrets that the State party has postponed the population census originally planned for 2011 and that, as a result, there is no updated data on the composition of the population. The Committee is also concerned at the insufficient statistical data provided by the State party on the realization of economic, social and cultural rights.” 17 A representative of the Government for the UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights in June this year stated: “The unemployment rate had been reduced from 39.1 per cent in 2006 to 24.5 per cent in 2016, a decrease of over 10 percentage points in 10 years, including a notable fall of 2.8 percentage points between the first quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016. This had been achieved through a range of measures targeting particularly vulnerable groups, such as young people. Under a programme entitled Macedonia Employs, jobs had been found for 12,000 people in a period of just one year. The programme encouraged employers to recruit new staff, giving them subsidies for employing individuals from vulnerable groups and exempting them from the payment of income tax and insurance contributions, which were covered by the State. It was planned to allocate €11 million to various employment measures during the current year.” But, at the final Report for Macedonia UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights emphasized that: “The Committee is concerned that despite the decrease in recent years, unemployment remains high, particularly among youth, women, Roma and persons with disabilities, and that the majority of work opportunities are in the informal economy (art. 6).”

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are in poverty are also employed.18This was also emphasized in the last EU Progress Report for Macedonia, which also noted that poverty remains a serious problem, in particular for Roma. Labor market participation remained very low, especially among women (38.8% in Q1/2015). These are serious issues that we, as a society, should be concerned about and work to improve. The recent, National Strategy for the reduction of poverty and social exclusion 2010-2020, formally adopted by the Government, obviously is not enough. Data related to citizens of all ages, published by the State Bureau for Statistics, show the following:

Т-28: At-risk-of-poverty rate by most frequent activity status and by gender, 2011 - 2013

%

2011 2012 2013

Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female

Employed 10.2 11.2 8.5 11.1 11.9 9.8 11.1 11.8 10.0

Unemployed 48.7 57.1 37.3 46.5 52.7 37.9 43.7 51.3 34.2

Retired 13.0 17.5 6.4 14.1 19.4 5.0 10.9 15.1 3.2

Other inactive population

34.8 26.8 36.6 33.0 26.6 34.3 29.2 25.8 29.8

Furthermore, the June 2016 Report for Macedonia by the UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights stipulates that: “The Committee is concerned that, despite the decrease in poverty rate in recent years, almost a quarter of the population is still living in poverty and thus denied the right to an adequate standard of living. It is also concerned that income inequality continues to grow in the State party. While welcoming the lowering of VAT on essential consumer items, the Committee also regrets that the State party’s tax system, including the low level of the flat tax on personal and corporate income, is ineffective in reducing poverty and in ensuring appropriate redistribution of income (art. 11).” Additionally, the following examples show the real picture of the ”working poor” issue:

56% of the young people are unemployed, which indirectly makes their families poorer.

The percentage of working poor is rising every year – either individual workers don’t earn enough or only one member of a family works, and this person’s income is shared by three, four or more people.

The general perception is that pensioners have many benefits, yet they are the most excluded citizens. In many families the pension is the only income and the whole family lives with that money, which makes many elderly people the victims of domestic violence.19

Finally, for the last 8 years the UNESCO Institute for statistics has not published any data for Macedonia based on the indicator: “Poverty headcount ratio at $3.10 per day (PPP) (% of population)”. 20

3. Percentage of young people at risk of discrimination (gender, race, ethnic, sexual orientation)

18 One more argument on this thesis is the fact that according to all statistics in Macedonia, as we emphasized above in this research, youth unemployment is always higher than the unemployment rate of all people of working age. 19 These data are collected by Macedonian Anti-Poverty Platform – MAPP for the 56th session of CESCR, from 12 to

16 October 2015 20 Available at: http://data.uis.unesco.org/#

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In the Republic of Macedonia still there are no official total statistics for this indicator.21 However, according to the EU Progress Report for Macedonia and the Program Mechanisms for human rights of the UN (CEDAW 2013, UPR 2014, CAT, CERD and CCPR 2015), it is emphasized that the Law on prevention and protection against discrimination in Macedonia needs amendments in order to strengthen the protection of human rights and the principle of non-discrimination (especially on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity). In this line, the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, after a consultation process with the main stakeholders (including CSOs dealing with this issue), adopted the National Strategy for equality and non-discrimination 2016-2020 in May 2016.22

4. Percentage of young people in prisons

As we mentioned above for the previous indicator, there are also no official statistics for this indicator. The Annual Report by the Ombudsman for 2015 just emphasized the fact that the prisons in Macedonia are crowded (no distinction among the ages of prisoners) and the conditions in these do not adequately ensure the human rights of prisoners. Nevertheless, an important issue regarding youth and crime is that the Law for Juvenile Justice is no longer force and the Criminal Code states that a juvenile could already be considered criminally responsible if he/she is over 14 years old.

5. Percentage of young people in continuous care

For this concrete indicator there is no statistical data also and we can just present the conclusion of the UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights in the last Report for Macedonia: “The Committee is concerned at the insufficient funding to the health sector, the shortage of qualified medical professionals and the inadequate coverage and benefits of the Health Insurance Fund, which result in limited access to healthcare services, particularly for Roma and those living in rural areas. It is also concerned that some private health service providers charge fees for the services that should be provided free of charge as stipulated by the licensing agreements under which they operate” (art. 12). Also we have some ‘connected’ data for all citizens by the State Bureau for Statistics which show us this situation:

2011 (%)

2012 (%)

2013 (%)

Self-perceived general state of health

29.6 29.8 30.6 Very good

43.4 46.5 45.7 Good

21 These are just partial data from the Reports of the Ombudsman, since its competence is just related to discrimination committed by state institutions and bodies with public authorization. One could also collect some data from the individual cases of the Commission for protection against discrimination (just those in which the Commission adopted a final recommendation or opinion), but they are not a mirror of the whole society. 22 Available at:

http://www.mtsp.gov.mk/content/pdf/dokumenti/7.7_Strategija%20za%20ednakvost%20i%20nediskriminacija.pdf

But also UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights in its last Report dated June 2016 stated: “The

Committee is concerned that the 2010 Law on the Prevention of and Protection against Discrimination does not

include sexual orientation and gender identity as prohibited grounds of discrimination and that article 14(6) of the

Law maintains a discrimination between opposite-sex unions, to which the concept of family is reserved, and same-

sex unions. It is also concerned that university textbooks convey negative stereotypes against lesbian, gay, bi-sexual,

transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons. It is further concerned that LGBTIs are bullied, physically attacked,

socially stigmatized and discriminated and that law enforcement officials do not always take action in cases of

violence against LGBTI persons (art. 2 (2)).”

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16.4 14.1 14.8 Fair

9.0 8.3 7.3 Bad

1.6 1.3 1.6 Very bad

In this field it is important to mention that the Law on Child Care as well as the Law on Health Protection are good grounds for achieving the health rights of youngsters, but improvement is needed in Macedonia in the practical implementation of the legal provisions since many problems that occur in the health sector are caused by the fast reforms that have been taken. Furthermore, a significant role is played by the NGOs that recently have started a campaign for establishing sexual education in Macedonia’s formal education system in order to decrease sexually transferable diseases among youth.23

6. Percentage of young people that are illiterate

According to an estimate by the UNESCO Institute for statistics in 2015, in Macedonia 2,124 female citizens aged 15-24 are illiterate and 1,856 males aged 15-24 are illiterate, or 3,980 young people in total.24 Consequently, according to the same estimate, youth literacy rates are 98.74% and 98.48% for males and females respectively. The overall youth literacy rate in Macedonia is 98.62%. The youth literacy rate definition covers the population between the ages of 15 to 24 years.25

7. Percentage of young people graduated from high school There is no such statistics published on the national level, nor is there any estimate by the UNESCO

Institute for statistics. To gather these data (usually done by each school individually), it will take us

more time and resources.

8. Percentage of young people that drop out of high school The following statistics are available from the Macedonian National Education Profile published by the

World Bank in 2014. Nearly 31% of female youth of secondary school age are out of school, compared to

36% of male youth of the same age. For youth of secondary school age, the biggest disparity can be seen

between the poorest and the richest youth. Please note that Figures 4 and 5 make use of the national

definition of primary and secondary education, instead of the UNESCO-ISCED definition.26 In this line the

UNESCO Institute for statistics has published no statistics and no estimate for Macedonia for this

indicator.

23 NGO named HERA is leading initiator of this initiative and campaign. 24 Available at: http://data.uis.unesco.org/# 25 Available at: http://countrymeters.info/en/Macedonia. Additionally, according to Macedonia Population Clock available at: http://countrymeters.info/en/Macedonia - these are current statistical numbers (last checked on 09 July 2016):

2 081 941 Current population

1 042 888 Current male population (50.1%)

1 039 053 Current female population (49.9%)

26 Available at: http://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/EPDC%20NEP_Macedonia.pdf

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9. Young people enrolled in tertiary education The latest data published for Macedonia by the UNESCO Institute for statistics on this indicator date from 2013 when 2,927.9 new students per 100,000 inhabitants enrolled in tertiary education.27 The State Bureau for Statistics published some data for enrolment of graduates in master studies in the academic year 2014/2015 as following:

T-01: Persons enrolled in postgraduate studies by type and location of the tertiary institution, scientific field of the master's thesis, by universities, 2014/2015

Total Natural

sciences and mathematics

Technical and

techno-logical

sciences

Medical sciences

Biotechnical sciences

Social science

s

Humanities

3 569

77 628 23 51 2 371 419 Total

1 894

55 415 13 48 1 108 255 Public tertiary institutions

10. Young people graduate from tertiary education

The latest data published for Macedonia by the UNESCO Institute for statistics on this indicator date from 2013 when the total number students that completed tertiary education was 11,363. Of these 6,395 were female. Also, for the same year there is not available data for graduates from ISCED 5 programmes in tertiary education. But the latest data from 2012 show us 215 total graduates from both sexes, of which 183 were female. Furthermore, in 2013 graduates from ISCED 6 programmes in tertiary education numbered 9,151 students in total, from which 5,125 were female. In the same line, in 2013 there were 1,993 total graduates from ISCED 7 programmes in tertiary education, of which 1,151 were female. And finally, in 2013 there were 219 total graduates from ISCED 8 programmes in tertiary education, from which 119 were female.28 Additionally, the State Bureau for Statistics published data for 2014, as is visible in the tables below:

27 Available at: http://data.uis.unesco.org/# 28 Available at: http://data.uis.unesco.org/#

T-02: Graduated students by mode of study and sex, 2014

Total Full-time Part-time

Total Men Wome

n Total Men

Women

Total Men Wome

n

9 863 4 352 5 511 7 799

3 366 4 433 2 064

986

1 078 Total

7 746 3 172 4 574 6 516

2 682 3 834 1 230

490

740 Public tertiary institutions

2 094 1 171 923 1 269

679 590 825 492

333 Private tertiary institutions

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***Impediments to youth social participation All concerns of the UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights cited above, and especially the fact that in Macedonia there has not been a Population Census for 14 years, are the biggest impediments to youth social participation. Also, one of the crucial impediments is the problem that laws which regulate this field have been constantly changed or amended in a very short period of time. This leads us to the conclusion that social politics especially towards youth is not consistent. ***RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SOCIAL PARTICIPATION:

All legislation for social inclusion to be revised with broader public debate, especially taking into consideration recommendations and suggestions given by youth themselves, followed by the consistent implementation with few changes to improve social participation

Supporting Youth to be part of European and International Events, Forums, Exchanges… and connect in networks the representatives of NGOs at all levels (local, national, international);

Awareness raising among all citizens about the importance of youth needs for better social participation;

Establishing of Youth Info and Career Centers in smaller municipalities in Macedonia, to be led by nonpartisan youth;

Motivating youth to represent both themselves and Macedonia in international competitions.

c. ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION: For the economic inclusion of youth, which is one of the biggest problems in Macedonia, we reach our conclusions by looking at the official statistics of the State Bureau of Statistics and The Employment Agency of Republic of Macedonia through different indicators:

23 9 14 14 5 9 9 4 5 Religious faculties

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1. Youth unemployment rate Below in the tables are the latest data published by the State Bureau for Statistics related to this issue:

2.

Age

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE – RURAL

Total Total Men Women

15-19 26.5 26.1 27.3

20-24 52.4 52.1 52.8

25-29 44.5 42.2 48.7

30-34 39.1 36.2 44.1

35-39 28.2 27.6 29.5

40-44 18.9 21.5 14.6

45-49 19.4 19.1 19.8

50-54 19.0 19.5 18.0

55-59 20.7 20.6 21.0

60-64 19.3 20.7 15.6

65 + 19.8 22.1 :

15-64 26.8 26.4 27.6

We submitted a request for free access to public information to the Employment Agency and we received the information that on 30 April 2016 29,033 youth aged between 18 and 30 were registered as active job seekers and 19,168 youth were registered as passive job seekers.29

29 According to Macedonian laws that regulate the “labor market”, active job seekers are obliged to register themselves as job seekers once per month, whereas passive job seekers are obliged to registered themselves once every 6 months.

Employment rates of the population aged 15 years and over by age, urban and rural, 2014

EMPLOYMENT RATE, URBAN EMPLOYMENT RATE, RURAL

Total

41.3 41.2

15-19 1.9 6.5

20-24 19.7 30.1

25-29 50.3 45.9

30-34 61.3 56.2

35-39 67.6 63.1

40-44 66.6 60.5

45-49 65.1 59.0

50-54 61.3 54.4

55-59 53.0 49.4

60-64 23.1 24.3

65 + 0.6 5.1

15-64 48.2 45.3

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3. Youth long term unemployment rate (> 1 year) According to the Annual Report of the Employment Agency for 2014 with state on December 31, 2014 54% of unemployed persons30 are waiting to find job up to 11 months, 26% have been searching for a job for 1 to 3 years and 20% have been searching for a job for 4 or more years. On the same day state: 67% of unemployed were Macedonians, 21% were Albanians, 3,3% were Turkish, 5,7% were Roma, 0,8% were Serbs, 0,2% were Vlachos, 0,2% were Bosnians and 1,9% were members of other smaller ethnic communities. 31 In this area when we analyze the Annual Report of the Employment Agency for 2014 we can see that the largest number of unemployed persons are of the following professions: economists, lawyers, professors of Macedonian languages, teachers, social workers etc.32 One of the measures of the Employment Agency in the last few years is subsidies for unemployed youngsters up to 29 who have at least a bachelor degree, where the financial help directly by the Employment Agency is given to the employers who employ persons from this category for 3 months and afterwards those employers have a duty to hold this employees (or somebody else from this category) for the next 6 months during which period they are paying social charges for them. Up to now, 2 public announcements were published and only 10 youth are employed through this measure.

4. Percentage of self-employed youth Detailed data about this indicator is not available yet, so can only give partial information about the support of the Employment Agency to young people under 29 to be self-employed. This measure was considered to be more popular than the measure for self-employment. Eligible to apply to this measure were not only young people but all unemployed job seekers who completed a training for entrepreneurship and business planning and who suggested an appropriate business plan. Consequently 940 new businesses were registered by unemployed active job seekers. This measure was supported by the UNDP. Also, there is a measure of the Employment Agency for crediting youngsters under 29 and according to the official data published in the Annual Report 2014 – 6 public announcements for crediting this category of people were published. Of the 1,936 total requests submitted, 597 were submitted by youngsters. Employment Agency statistics show us that for 2014 the total number of credit contracts concluded was 939, of which 284 contracts were concluded with youngsters under the age of 29.

5. Percentage of youth refusing work (National agency) There is no such statistic in Macedonia. We could make efforts to gather this kind of data through the procedure of free access to public information, but we could not be sure about the result of this procedure.

6. Percentage of young people employed in the private sector Below are data published by the State Bureau for Statistics. Most of them are for all employed persons, but there are also some data for youth. The following two tables show data for all employees:

30 These statistics are also for all unemployed, not only for youth. 31 These statistics are also for all unemployed, not only for youth. 32 Annual Report 2014 of Employment Agency

18

T-01: Employees in the Republic of Macedonia1)

Total number of employees

Total Indices

2014/2013

Women Indices 2014/2013 2013 2014 2013 2014

TOTAL 483 447

501 788

103.8 207 956

214 286

103.0

And now from the following table we can see the structure of employees by age:

7. Percentage of young people employed in the public sector In Macedonia one of the reforms that was taken was the adoption of new laws that regulate public administration. Recently, two new laws have entered into force: Law on Public Sector Employees and Law on Administrative Officers.33 According to the Law on Public Sector Employees, from the table below we can see data for this indicator published in March 2016 by the Ministry for Information Society and Administration in its Annual Report for 2015.34

33 There were so many debates related to this new legislation and some of the provisions were annulled by the Constitutional Court of Republic of Macedonia or additionally amended by the MPs. 34 Available at: http://www.mio.gov.mk/files/pdf/dokumenti/Registar_mart2016.pdf

T-02: Employees by types of ownership, 20141)

Total Ownership

Private Other

Total Women Total Women Total Women

TOTAL 501 788 214 286 350 581 147 380 151 207 66 906

T-04: Employees by age, 20141)

Total number of employees

Total

Number of employees by age

20-24

25-29

30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

up

to 19

65 and

more

472 325

2 011

21 396

55 413

67 527

67 145 64 253

63 994

59 357

48 877

21 609

745

19

***Impediments to youth economic participation There is one general impediment for this field in Macedonia – very high rate of unemployment among young people and the largest rate compared with other ages groups. This impediment influences other more specific impediments related to different indicators within youth economic participation. ***RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION:

Establish a granting scheme by the Government and Local Self-Government for youth and supporting projects financed by the EU in this field with co-funding;

Political efforts to tell foreign investors that in Macedonia the cheap work force is being replaced by a “competent and ambitious working force” which will be completely in line with the Strategy - Europe 2020 (smart growth)

Inform youth about the importance of volunteerism and encourage them to practice more and attend trainings in the fields that they are interested in;

Youth organizations to be more active in securing funds, both domestic and international, in order to implement more projects for increasing youth inclusion in all fields;

Engaged institutions, as well as CSOs organize more trainings, both professional and as a part of informal education for new business ideas, for the importance of entrepreneurship and for motivating you to found new startups.

20

Indicator Definition Primary Source of Data

Political participation Dimension

Young ministers in Government M/F N/A Government

Young deputy ministers in

government M/F

N/A Ministries

Young MPs in the parliament M/F 8,3% National Parliament

Young mayors 1,25 The State Commission of

Elections

Young people participating in

General Assemblies of political

parties

N/A Parliamentary Political

Parties

On-line tools for information and

participation in decision making of

government and parliament

15 Ministries/Parliament

On-line tools for information and

participation in decision making of

municipalities

90% Municipalities

Existence of youth structure

(councils/parliaments/unions/offices)

on national level

1 Ministry in charge of

Youth

Existence of youth structure

(councils/parliaments/unions/offices)

on local level

66 out of 84 Municipalities

Social Participation dimension

Young people at risk of poverty N/A National

Reports/International

Reports

Complaints about discrimination of

young people, reported to the

relevant institutions

N/A Institutions in charge

(Ombudsman,

Commission for

Protection Against

Discrimination, etc)

Young people in prisons N/A Institutions in charge

21

Young people in need for continuous

care

N/A Ministry in charge of

Social Welfare

Young people who established their

own CSOs in the last year

N/A National Registry

Young people illiterate (age 15-24) 3,980 (2,124 female/ 1856 male) National Institute of

Statistics

Dropout from the secondary

education

31% female / 36% male National Institute of

Statistics

Young people enrolled in tertiary

education

N/A National Institute of

Statistics

Young people graduated from

tertiary education

N/A National Institute of

Statistics

Economic Participation dimension

NEET rate 31,9% National Institute of

Statistics

Youth unemployment rate 36-40% National Institute of

Statistics

Long-term youth

unemployment rate

77,8% National Institute of

Statistics

Youth Labor force participation rate 32,8% National Institute of

Statistics

Youth Employment rate 17,3% National Institute of

Statistics

Young people that started their own

business with the financial support of

state

N/A National institution in

charge

Self-employed young people 3,0% National Institute of

Statistics/Institutions in

charge

Young people with disability

employed by private sector entities

N/A Ministry in charge of

Social Affairs