Understanding integrated adolescent development in Mongolia
Situational Analysis
- English
- Mongolian
Highlights
This report presents the situational analysis of Mongolia using a gendered life-course, narrative from early childhood to young adulthood, with a particular focus on the critical tether in-between: adolescence. There are 1.2 billion adolescents, aged 10-19 years, in the world today, with the majority living in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs)
The study adopted a mixed-method approach of in-country consultations, desk-based review of available literature, and quantitative analysis. A gender lens is particularly important to grasping the experiences of adolescent girls and boys. Adolescence is a period when gender norms, roles and relations are embedded and internalised, leading to heightened risks. Adolescent boys typically internalise a dominant form of masculinity that is associated with repressive emotional behaviours, aggression and violence, risky sexual behaviours and tobacco and alcohol abuse. Pubescent and older adolescent girls are therefore at risk of sexual abuse and violence within the home and from male partners, and early pregnancies. Moreover, they disproportionately carry the double burden of care work and academic achievement.
Mongolia is a lower middle-income country that presents a unique historical, political, livelihood and environmental context. Overall, younger people are more likely to be in poverty than older generations. The threats of climate change and capital-centric migration are major factors for increasing poverty, with more households reliant on low wages and/or unemployment benefits. In Mongolia, deprivation and vulnerability manifests not in household income but in critical access to services. Social services especially healthcare, social care, child protection and education continue to be urban centric. For long, the country has been a best practice example for having a progressive social development sector. In the recent years, precarious macro-economic policies and market-driven supply and demand of services have pushed the country towards a shrinking public sector, and hesitancy in achieving a universal life-cycle social security floor.
The life-course narrative of children and adolescents of the country demonstrates that while the government and its partners have made remarkable progress in achieving early childhood development outcomes, persistent gaps remain in programming for older children and adolescents. The most vulnerable children and adolescents constitute only a minority in Mongolia; yet, their invisibility in data and policy decision-making leaves them in a cycle of inter-generational inequality. Like many other aspects of the country, the situation of gender inequity is complex and at times defies global trends. There is a need to better deconstruct the gender narrative of Mongolia, which is often inexplicable using conventional patriarchal frameworks.
