Understanding Young People’s Use of Civic and Political Engagement as a Path to Employment in Algeria: A Functional Analysis

Abstract

This article discusses a situation in which civic and political engagement worked for young Algerians as a pathway to employment, attempting to understand why they used this method. A functional analysis inspired by psychological studies on volunteering was applied to analyse 17 interviews conducted with young people who expressed the motivation for employment in the context of engagement with political parties and associations. The results show that engagement with these organizations was a way of strengthening human, social and cultural capital that reflects young people’s agency to cope in a context where access to employment requires the ability to navigate through different paths. On the other hand, some inclusive roles of political parties and associations in terms of offering young people socio-professional integration and social development were found.

Introduction

Youth employment in Algeria is a major concern. Over the past decade, the average rate of unemployment for 16–24 year olds reached 27.03%, ¹ twice the international average at 13.6% (ILO, 2020, p. 33). Besides analysing the performance of public policies and reasons for unemployment (Alimoussa, 2018; Ghouati, 2019; Hammouda, 2011; Madoui, 2015), researchers have also highlighted certain contributions of civil society organizations to the economic inclusion of young people, such as providing vocational training, strengthening entrepreneurial initiatives and playing the role of mediator with employers (Bendimerad et al., 2019; Benramdane, 2015; Matteudi et al., 2019). Although these studies shed light on initiatives at the level of civil society organizations, the individual side of engagement for employment has been understudied, limiting the understanding of how and why young people, as individuals, link civic and political engagement in employment processes.

In this context, functional analysis is an approach that addresses individuals who engage in similar actions. It suggests that their seemingly identical actions involve different individual’s needs which can be captured through the study of the motives that are satisfied, the needs that are met, and the goals that are reached (Houle et al., 2005). As applied to volunteering, users frequently rely on an inventory measure composed of six volunteering functions, including values, understanding society, career development, social conformity, protective and esteem enhancement (Clary et al., 1998; Güntert et al., 2016; Snyder et al., 2000). My study does not seek to measure these functions and predict volunteering, but rather, it is inspired by this analytical model to implement an in-depth analysis of the work function (frequently termed career function) by addressing participants who have already manifested—in my fieldwork—the motivation of employment during their involvement with political and civil society organizations. The aim is, therefore, to think in terms of functions that match the needs and goals of young people regarding employment and, beyond that, to identify patterns through which political and civil society organizations can contribute to the employment of young people.

Empirically, the present study is informed by seventeen (N 17) individual interviews conducted with Algerian young people involved in political parties and associations. By Algerian law, these organizations can be defined as a group of citizens sharing the same interests. Political parties seek to attain positions in the state and participate in the management of public affairs, while associations provide services to society in different fields (The Official Journal of People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, 2012). Although the services of these organizations are voluntary and non-lucrative, I shed light on the processes through which engagement within them can lead to work. My research questions are as follows: How does involvement in associations and political parties function for young people as a path to work? How can their use of this path be understood?

The current article is organized as follows: I present how employment has been discussed in the context of civic and political engagement, referring to the Algerian case. Before presenting and discussing my findings, I explain the methodology used to produce and process the data. The final part of the study concludes with general remarks.

Employment in the Context of Civic and Political Engagement

Early research analysed work as a trigger of citizens’ involvement in the public space (Beeghley, 1986; Brady et al., 1995; Lindquist, 1964; Wilkes, 2004). Being employed meant having social and material resources and a greater ability to endure the costs of participation. Unemployment has been seen either as a barrier to engagement or a driver of more radical forms of political engagement. In all cases, work is an issue of citizen engagement. Opposite this direction, an emerging strand of the literature has emphasized that engagement leads to work. This has been discussed in different ways, which I summarize into four main categories.

First, involvement in political and civil society organizations contributes to developing human capital. While doing political and civic activities, participants learn, both formally or informally, the skills of good communication, teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, initiative spirit, writing reports, decision-making, and taking responsibility (Collins et al., 2021, Flanagan & Levine, 2010; Phillips & Phillips, 2000). These soft skills became important for employers because they facilitate the integration of newcomers into the workplace and strengthen company-community ties (Bourner & Millican, 2011; Khasanzyanova, 2017). In some cases, the skills acquired within political and civil society organizations are specific and work-related when it comes to learning technical competencies, such as the management of projects or learning about human resources and marketing (Benenson & Stagg, 2017; Bernardeau, 2018). Accordingly, civic and political engagement is seen as a pathway to improving the quality of the workforce and, consequently, to greater economic and social growth (Baert & Vujić, 2018; Kathleen & Rose, 1998).

Second, studies on job search strategies have emphasized that jobseekers first resort to their social networks, especially family and friends (Lassassi & Alhawarin, 2018; Mouw, 2003). In this vein, civic and political organizations have been confirmed to foster citizens’ social networking because they provide frameworks for regular contact between people who share similar interests, ideas and social backgrounds (Baert & Vujić, 2018; Benenson & Stagg, 2017). However, attention must be paid to analysing and understanding the use of networking for work in different contexts. In societies where the rule of law prevails and social ties are reciprocal, social networking is seen as part of social capital, which is considered necessary for economic growth because it facilitates the flow of information, the diffusion of trust and the growth of solidarity in the community (Kapucu, 2011; Skidmore, 2010). In contrast, in settings where tribalism and clannism determine the social status of individuals, networking functions more within the logic of clientelism, which produces asymmetrical and dependent relationships between individuals and may violate the principles of equal opportunities among jobseekers (Kropf & Newbury-Smith, 2016). Similar findings have been highlighted in contexts where corruption prevails over political and administrative institutions (Slingerland, 2021). In the Algerian case, the analysis of the networks fabricated during civic and political engagement can be understood within the perspectives of informality, clientelism and corruption more than of social capital (Ciftci & Bernick, 2015; Lassassi & Alhawarin, 2018).

The third category asserts the social roles of political and civil society organizations. During the decline of the welfare state and the spread of neoliberal policies at the end of the 1980s, civil society organizations could fill the voids left by the partial withdrawal of the states from certain economic and social roles by creating work and providing training to vulnerable social categories (Natil et al., 2019; Soler-i-Martí et al., 2021). Algeria has been experiencing this situation since 1989, when the State strengthened the associative fabric to reduce the effects of the neoliberal economic policies on vulnerable categories in society, a process that greatly contributed to the development of the associative fabric to be, at certain periods, the partner of the state (Bendimerad et al., 2019; Kadri, 2012). Additionally, the expansion of the economy based on social innovation and entrepreneurship has enabled civil society organizations to integrate productive and job-creating activities as well as to apply methods used in economic companies to manage their activities. Accordingly, several social categories could initiate professional careers within or through these organizations (Jamali & Lanteri, 2015).

Finally, civic and political engagement enables citizens to express their grievances to public authorities and society at large. Through engagement, vulnerable and unemployed citizens become more visible in the public sphere, and their participation can influence political decisions that impact their daily lives, including work (D’Achon, 2021). In Algeria, this role has been highlighted in the context of social and protest movements and organizations defending the rights of the unemployed people (Belakhdar, 2015; Bennadji, 2010). These movements have repeatedly sensitized public authorities to rethink employment policies and allocate greater resources to promoting youth employment, such as subsidizing self-business micro credits and pre-employment contracts to facilitate the integration of newcomers into the labour market (Alimoussa, 2018; Ghouati, 2019).

However, the analysis of political and civic engagement as a pathway to employment has been criticized. Studies informed by the socio-economic status of individuals have highlighted that accumulating human and social capital in the context of civic and political engagement is unequal among various social classes (Egerton & Mullan, 2008). People with higher levels of education are more likely to acquire new skills and then effectively turn them into economic opportunities. Likewise, people with financial resources can support the costs of participation and take advantage of the opportunities embedded within political and civil society organizations (Benenson, 2017). Besides this, women have more trouble entering or remaining active in the public sphere, and this concerns contexts where conservative culture still prevails (Ciftci & Bernick, 2015). On the other hand, not all forms of civic and political activities serve as pathways towards employment or increasing employability. For example, participation in charitable activities does not enhance professional skills because of the lack of professional training and financing, which is in contrast to doing unpaid work in the private economic sector, where training is more relevant for future paid work (Hoskins et al., 2020).

Method and Data

The present article uses qualitative data collected as part of research on the civic and political engagement of young people in Algeria. The fieldwork was conducted in an urban area: the city of Oran ² from May 2017 to January 2019, during which I focused on the political effects of generational renewal. Interestingly, employment emerged as a motivation that partly shaped the civic and political engagement of the participants.

Participants

At an early stage of my fieldwork, I participated in 10 activities of five political parties (including three meetings discussing current social and political issues, three meetings preparing local and legislative elections in 2017 and four meetings including collaboration with associations to do social work) and 10 activities of seven associations (including two training programmes, four project preparations and implementation and four activities of animation). This process allowed me to identify active young people and make contact with them. In the next step, I interviewed 17 young activists who were selected based on the ‘purposeful sampling’ method that targeted activists who can speak with ‘experience’ and ‘knowledge’ about civic and political engagement (Palinkas, 2015). This explains why certain socio-demographic categories are under-represented in number, such as gender and level of education.

As a result, the participants included 10 men and 7 women. Their ages ranged between 20 and 33 years old, 12 of them had received university education, and the remaining five had secondary or primary-level education. As for their employment status, 13 did not yet have a stable or satisfactory job, while the remaining four already had a stable and satisfactory job. In terms of civic and political engagement patterns, seven of the interviewees were active in political parties and 10 in associations. However, four of the interviewees who were active in political parties were also active or had experience in associations.

Interviews

The interviews were semi-structured and discussed the life trajectory, motivations of engagement, daily and occasional activities, skills and advantages learned from engagement, difficulties hindering engagement and the main challenges facing Algerian society. To capture the interactions between the individual logic behind engagement and general conditions influencing the transition to employment, I asked a range from the personal to the general, passing through experience within the political and civil society organization. The average time of the interviews was 45 minutes and were conducted in Arabic, so all quotes were translated by me into English. To protect the respondents, I altered some personal information when presenting their narratives or social backgrounds.

Data Analysis

Data processing used reflexive thematic analysis. This method emphasizes the analyst’s subjectivity and interpretive engagement with the data, during which the production of codes and themes is considered the output of the analytical process and not something inherent in the data (Braun & Clarke, 2022). The choice of this method follows my early engagement with participants in their political and civic activities, as well as the processual and progressive analysis of the interviews when I conducted vertical analyses of each interview immediately after its completion. This process allowed me to be familiarized with the data, determine major codes throughout the interviews, and generate themes. At this stage, the analysis was descriptive and much more concerned with data reduction (Nowell et al., 2017).

I then conducted a data-driven analysis, where each transcription was approached based on shared meaning. This means that constructing themes was not based on lines or paragraph units but on searching shared meanings that exist separately and in different parts of the data set (Braun & Clarke, 2021). The purpose of the data-driven analysis was to reformulate codes into latent codes and then into themes and subthemes to better capture the ideas underlying each data set and grasp the nuances between interviews (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The data-driven analysis also followed the active side of the respondents’ narratives, of which this was seen as creators of reality, not just a means of reflecting it (Braun & Clarke, 2022).

When carrying out this analysis, I was aware of potential biases in the interpretation of the data, especially that the data collection and analysis processes were carried out exclusively by me. To minimize this, I presented my results and interpretation to three other researchers specializing in youth studies, two of whom had expertise in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Although they were not involved in the collection and analysis of the data, their thoughts and comments on my results were a counter-perspective that I used to evaluate my data interpretation and do a critical reading to them.

Results

From an in-depth reading and coding of the data to identify patterns and meanings relating to employment in the context of civic and political engagement, the following four overarching themes are now presented: a process of learning and experiencing practical skills; accessing careers; job search strategy and, context for diversifications and making temporary income.

A Process of Learning and Experiencing Practical Skills

The respondents’ engagement with political parties and associations involved a request for practical experience and knowledge. This was demonstrated either at the level of engagement for learning purposes or practice of previously acquired theoretical knowledge. In this regard, Hakima, Abdullah and Khawla were respondents whose civic engagement was motivated by their university studies. Hakima, a 32-year-old individual, was pursuing doctoral studies in geology and Abdullah, a 24-year-old individual, was a student in architecture, while Khawla, a 21-year-old individual, was studying psychology. Hakima and Abdullah were active in an association operating in the field of protecting material and historical heritage, and Khawla was part of an association concerned with health and youth promotion. Their involvement with these associations was oriented to practice their university studies. They said the following:

I joined this association because it is closely linked to my university studies. It gives me the space to practice the knowledge I had at the university, which will be important for my career as an academic researcher in the future.

I contacted the association to learn about the refinement of old building stones. I needed this training for my career because the university lacks practical education. It is also a space to practice my architecture knowledge when we visit old buildings.

This association reinforces my plan to become a psychologist. I developed my knowledge about psychic cases as the association deal with them, and I benefit from contacts with doctors in this association.

Although these quotes reflect specialized and study-related skills, there are other quotes that shed light on soft skills that are more linked to social and interpersonal competencies. These were important in terms of the professional projects of respondents. Mehdi, who was a 21-year-old university student, reflected on the learning aspect of his engagement regarding these skills:

I adhered to the association to strengthen my social skills. I learned group management, interaction with others, spirit of initiatives and adaptability to different conditions. These skills help for employment.

Mehdi was grateful to the association, which gave him an opportunity to lead several social projects such as organizing the association’s annual forum on youth citizenship empowerment. Although these were not related to his studies in marketing, he considered them beneficial in terms of team management and social communication.

Accessing Careers

The engagement was an entry point to certain careers in different ways. Yasmine, Hamid and Iman were respondents who accessed state positions through participation in elections and support they received from political parties of which they were members. Yasmine and Imane, 27 and 30 years old, respectively, with university and primary level of education, occupied the position of municipal delegate. Hamid, a 31-year-old individual with a university-level education, chairs the communication commission in the provincial council:

After five years of activism within a political party, I accessed the position of municipal delegate after succeeding in elections and support of the political party.

I was a municipal delegate for two electoral terms. This position brought me a certain professional stability and compensated for my low level of education because accessing this position needed only popularity that I got through the political party.

I have held a provincial elected position in charge of a communication commission, which was my dream career that the political party helped realizing it.

Working as officials in elected councils involves a professional perspective within state institutions because it consists of regular salary, specific duties, social protection and retirement.

On the other hand, being involved in political parties provided Hichem and Samir with relationships that led them to a career. Hichem, 29-year-old activist in a political party with a master’s degree, was working in a hotel owned by a parliamentarian from the political party he was a member of. He thanks the political party for allowing him to meet the deputy and acquire his current position. He said the following:

I am currently working as an administrative assistant in a hotel. I got this job thanks to an acquaintance I developed with a parliamentarian from the political party of which I have been a member. Before, I used to work informally with a friend in his clothing stores, which was insecure and unstable work.

Similarly, Samir, who is 28 years old at a university level, was working as a civil servant in the municipality with a pre-employment contract. He obtained this work through the National Employment Agency, a government apparatus that facilitates the insertion of newcomers into the labour market. Samir mentioned that his participation in the political party, whose members were dominating the local elected council, helped him get this opportunity and begin his first professional experience, because of the relationships he tied with those members.

As for Hafida, a 24-year-old individual with a secondary level, she could start a career because of participation in an association. She said the following:

I work as an assistant babysitter in an association. This association could recruit me as an assistant to a qualified babysitter and start a career in this field. I am now planning to take the baccalaureate and pursue a bachelor’s degree in social sciences because this will allow me to start my own childcare business in the future.

Hafida’s association was operating in the field of social and human solidarity and started a childcare project where she could start a career as an assistant to a qualified babysitter. Hafida was thankful to the association, which allowed her to start and learn about this career, despite a lack of qualifications. At the same time, it motivated her to continue her studies and start her own childcare business in the future.

Job Search Strategy

Civic and political engagement was invested in by respondents as a three-dimensional job search strategy. The first emerged at the level of learning about existing employment opportunities. In this regard, several respondents highlighted the importance of information in the recruitment process. Integrating into an organized network was important for approaching companies and institutions by benefiting from their networks. Nassima, a 24-year-old individual, was a new university graduate and active in an association concerned with youth development, said the following:

I am currently looking for a job and participation in the association helps me. We share applications and information about opportunities. In addition, the association frequently receives invitations to participate in economic forums and institutional events, which allows me to meet employers.

The second strategy was searching for relationships. Omar and Karim were members of political parties who estimated that their existence in this organization may help them find a job, especially through making connections with local and national officials of the party as well as the other activists. Aymen, a 27-year-old individual with a secondary level of education, said the following:

I heard from a friend that it is a good party and helps young people. I said why I don’t try because I had nothing to lose. I am looking for a job and may find someone in the party who can help me.

As Karim, a 27-year-old with a secondary level education and working informally in a store, said the following:

My plan is to make myself familiar and visible to important activists who are in the party for later help in finding a stable job.

The last strategy targeted reputation and recognition through engagement with these organizations. Yasmine, who was 27-years-old, was working as a lawyer before becoming a local official. She considered that experience of local elections and working as a local official would be beneficial for her career. She stated the following:

It’s important to have this experience because it is linked to my work as a lawyer. Being a local official means more recognition in the community.

Rachid, who was 28 year old with a primary level of education and a member of an association concerned with youth development, pointed out that his engagement was for developing his career as a graffiti artist. Engagement with this association provided him with a legal framework and popular sympathy for his profession (e.g., decorating public street walls). Moreover, he became better able to use public spaces and gain free publicity for his graffiti. He stated the following:

My engagement is for mutual benefits. I provide the association my graffiti for free, but I make my profession known and recognized by others. The association provided me with the legal framework to use public walls, to learn from other professional graffiti artists and to gain sympathy of people.

Yasmine and Rachid targeted cultural capital beyond their engagement. Having recognition and a good reputation was an important element of their career plan and a way to increase their employment opportunities.

A Context for Diversification and Making Temporary Income

Ayman, a 29-year-old individual with a university graduate degree, reflected on income diversification through involvement in a political party. As a college math teacher, he used an area in the party building to tutor students in exchange for money. Aymen discovered this during his participation in political party activities when he noticed that the party needed resources to cover the costs of its operation (electricity bills, drinks and food at meetings, cleaning). He said the following:

There has been a vacant space on the political party building. We needed financial resources to cover the political party operations. I proposed tutoring students in this space for a low fee. I think we are all winners. The party will take part of the income to cover its costs, and the students will benefit from a low-cost tutorial, while I will receive a little extra money from my tutoring activities because my salary as college teacher is not enough.

The idea of working several jobs also appeared as a future plan beyond engagement. Nadir, a 22-year-old master’s student, joined an association to pursue training in photography. Alongside his studies in mechanics at university, he estimated that training in photography would be a secondary work:

It is important to have an additional profession and work. Nothing is guaranteed, and life costs increased. For this, I am learning how to be a photographer.

A similar plan appeared from Hakima, who said that another objective of her involvement with the association regarding the protection of material heritage was to run her own association and apply for project funding. She considered that this plan aligned well with her career project as an academic researcher at the university and would create a second option to make an additional income besides her work at the university. For Aymen and Hakima, even if the secondary work was related to their field of employment (teaching and research); it could not be considered a career. It mainly aimed to improve income, and the experience accumulated in it was not considered in the promotion scale in their initial workplace.

On the other hand, civic and political engagement provided some respondents with a temporary income. This manifested in different forms. Some respondents could work on associations’ projects on a short term, paid contract basis. Hakima and Khawla, for example, were able to work on these kinds of projects and make a temporary income. They said, respectively, the following:

I have worked already as a part-time secretary for an association concerned with orphans before joining the association concerned with material heritage protection.

I worked in several paid projects such as the current UNICEF-funded Family Conflict project, where I helped conduct fieldwork for a three-month paid contract.

The work of Hakima and Khawla ran formally and based on official contracts. Karim, who was looking for a job in the political party, had worked informally as an assistant to the party leader during elections in exchange for temporary income, which was given to him by contributions of some activists. He said the following:

I worked as a secretary in a political party. It was irregular paid work during elections, where I helped the leader in administrative tasks and receiving citizens.

Other respondents discovered some work produced indirectly by political and civil society organizations, such as Omar, who could use his car to transport certain members of the political party, especially during periods of activities such as elections and party meetings. He discovered this extra work when certain activists, mainly women, asked him to transport them for a fee:

When participating in political party activities, many activists, especially women, asked me to transport them by my car in exchange for a daily or weekly sum of money. This is done either in their personal affairs, such as going to and from work or in relation to their political activities, such as going to and from party location.

These respondents considered doing this work just for ‘pocket money’ to help themselves when studying, like Hakima and Khawla, or to support unemployment costs, like Karim and Omar.

Discussion

The above-mentioned functions reflect the employment opportunities reported by the respondents. Their interpretation unveils a latent process that can be narrowed down to the quest for employability, which is a complex concept that has undergone significant changes and different theorizations (Fakunle & Higson, 2021). In the 1970s, employability was part of the development of knowledge and skills related to full employment policies initiated by governments; then, in the 1980s, economic companies integrated this concept in its organizations’ workforce strategy for establishing transferable skills as a means of increasing flexibility inside companies. Since the 1990s, employability has been extended to the entire working population by emphasizing the role of individuals in maintaining and developing their ability to be employed.

In relation to my findings, employability can be inferred from the respondents’ quest for human, social and cultural capital, which, altogether, were articulated into a perspective that questioned the effectiveness of education to integrate the labour market and achieve social advancement and, on the other hand, stimulated the agency of young people to navigate employment in the context of the complexities of labour markets. In this equation, political parties and associations could accomplish mediating processes.

The effectiveness of education in entering the labour market appeared when the respondents’ engagement reflected the ‘relative’ dimension of employability. This perspective expands the study of this concept from just examining the skills and capabilities needed to get a job to labour market conditions and the acquisition of cultural and social capital (Brown et al., 2003). Some studies in Algeria have already highlighted that education is no longer a determining factor for integrating the labour market nor achieving social advancement, as was the case in the 1970s (Ghouati, 2019; Madoui, 2015). Those respondents who engaged in learning practical skills showed, for example, the growing need for employees with practical competencies in the labour market and the importance of having technical and social practical skills. At the same time, they highlighted the limits of the education system in providing practical skills. Making social connections and community recognition were important drivers for engagement, especially during the job search process. Those respondents who entered state positions through the support of their political parties indicated that having a job depends not only on human capital but also on the cultural and relational capital fabricated inside the political party. This was most evident in the cases of Iman and Hafida, who, despite their modest level of education, could find skilled jobs either inside or through associations and political parties. The experience of Aymen, a middle school teacher who tutored students in a political party, reflects the inability to achieve social advancement, despite having a career and education level. He engaged to make some extra money and realize something important in his life course.

This understanding of education and the labour market informed the young people’s agency for employability. Previous studies have already used the concept of ‘capability-employability’ to shed light on an individual’s navigation of employability in a context where human capital is not sufficient to integrate employment (McGrath et al., 2017). In the context of my findings, the agency has been found to be related to whether the opportunities offered by political parties and associations are part of a policy of strengthening young people’s employability or reflect individual strategies. In this regard, the respondents reported manifest and latent forms of opportunity. Manifest form refers to planned opportunities offered by these organizations, which included initiatives for work-related skills, support during elections to access state positions, and working in short-term positions inside these organizations. Latent functions were produced unintentionally by these organizations and motivated the respondents to engage, such as working as a transporter and making a relationship. They were discovered by young people and transformed into employment opportunities.

If agency is more obvious in the context of the latent form of employment, the manifest form can raise some contradictions. For certain associations, training and strengthening the employability of young people were part of its objectives, but they were not part of a national policy in which the skills and experience acquired could be recognized. Benefiting from these opportunities depends on young people’s ability to show them during interviews, for example, or work trial periods in companies. Concerning the political parties, in terms of elections, their objective was to increase their political domination and not strengthen young people’s employability. However, some respondents took advantage of this aspect and used it to strengthen their employability in different ways (having a reputation and accessing state positions).

To enrich the functional analysis of volunteering, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have been introduced to examine whether this action is an objective in and of itself or a means to achieve another objective. The career development function has already been identified as an extrinsically oriented motivation because it requires an external outcome beyond the behaviour to be satisfied (Finkelstein, 2009; Güntert et al., 2016). Political parties and associations in Algeria generally do not contribute directly to employment and lack internal career perspectives (Kadri, 2012). Accordingly, it seems that the young respondents only adopted this path to meet certain extrinsic employment needs, such as having a temporary job, practical experience, recognition and reputation.

Conclusion

With the aim of exploring the dynamics of young people’s transition to the labour market in Algeria, the present article discussed a situation where civic and political engagement worked as a process of employment for young people involved in associations and political parties. In doing so, functional analysis was used to address the motivations of these young people and beyond, identifying employment opportunities based on their perspectives and experiences. In light of this framework, the findings support research emphasizing human, social and cultural capital as the key benefits of engagement and whose impact on employment is a controversial topic. The functioning of civic and political engagement as a pathway to employment appeared to be ‘a mediating process’. Indeed, under the pressure of unemployment, social precariousness and complexities of the labour market, many young respondents found themselves obligated to navigate their work while engaging with a political and civil society organization could work either as a space where they could acquire temporary jobs or improve their income—even in an informal way—or to use civic and political engagement as gateways to improve their employability.

On the other hand, the findings can also be understood as a relative success of certain political and civil society organizations in playing inclusive roles for young people, particularly in terms of integrating young people with low levels of education, providing networking and temporary incomes, accessing careers and self-development through training programmes that improve young people employability. This raises another topic that requires further investigation in the Algerian context, which is an emerging civil society that can associate the effort of the state in terms of integrating young people into society.