Who Are Lebanese Youth? A Segmentation-Based Approach to Understanding Youth and Youth's Attitudes in Lebanon

Lebanese youth are often constructed through fragmented lenses and policies that lack a holistic, interdisciplinary and integrated understanding of their complex, dynamic and highly differentiated livelihoods. In this paper, we argue against this generic representation, and for a reading of youth where their categorization is unpacked and related to other variables, able to reveal how being young is a diverse and subjective experience, intersecting with social relations, experiences and inequalities. The paper uses survey data analysis from the Power2Youth questionnaire fielded by Information International in Lebanon in winter 2016. Using data segmentation, the paper identifies five youth segments with different social characteristics, and mixed views on politics, religiosity and women’s rights. This demonstrates how Lebanese youth are not a homogeneous lot but a quite complex and diverse group, a factor which policy makers need to account for carefully in their agenda setting.