Interrogating waithood: family and housing life stage transitions among young adults in North-West Africa countries*

Abstract

The term ‘waithood’ has become increasingly used to describe the situations of 20-something males and females throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The suggestion is that, following a youth life stage, young adults’ lives stall due to males’ inability to obtain sufficiently stable and salaried employment to enable them to head new family forming households, which leaves young women, most of whom do not enter the labour market, unable to marry. We use quantitative and qualitative evidence from research in three North-West Africa countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) to argue that the situation is more nuanced. We conclude that youth life stage transitions in present-day MENA exhibit a region-specific combination of features. The combination is atypical globally, but neither intolerable for young people in MENA nor unsustainable societally.