and HIV/AIDS disproportionately affect youth from low-income families. Moreover, teenage mothers account for 8 percent of all births and contribute to Haiti’s high fertility rate of 4.2 children per woman in 2003.<sup>5</sup> Violence is part of everyday life in Haiti. Aggressive behavior is frequently linked to the inability to meet social expectations or provide for the family, which many youth experience (e.g., Moser and Bronkhorst 1999). Most females in Haiti have experienced some form of violence. Sexual abuse of girls is highly prevalent: 46 percent of all girls have been abused (World Bank 2002). Of these victims, 33 percent were girls aged 5–9, and 43 percent were girls aged 10–14. In Haiti a blind eye is often turned to such issues as incest and domestic violence.

This paper identifies groups of Haitian youth in which the prevalence of risktaking behavior is high and accounts for why such behavior is observed. Little research has been done on Haiti in this area, likely because of lack of data. The paper refers to earlier research, but is mainly based on information extracted from a still unreleased household survey from 2001. The survey is the first Living Conditions Survey (ECVH) for Haiti and consists of 7,186 households including 33,007 individuals. The data set covers the entire country and is representative at the regional level. The paper is organized in seven sections. Section 2 describes the connection between protective and risk factors and outcomes and presents the general framework used to evaluate the situation for youth in Haiti. Section 3 gives an overview of demographics and income poverty. Section 4 examines education and the likelihood of youth not being in school, and labor markets and the likelihood of being unemployed or inactive; it also considers migration. Section 5 addresses family structures and health issues such as HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy. Section 6 describes the security situation including crime, violence, domestic violence, and drug abuse. Section 7 concludes the paper and gives suggestions for future research. The appendix outlines a range of possible programs that could improve the situation for youth in Haiti.

# **2. Framework**

The definition of youth varies depending on the context; it may be determined in relation to the developmental stage as the proportion of same-age youth enrolled in school or the proportion working. Such definitions show great variation at country or regional level in respect to defining youth as a certain age group. The age group used here is 15–24 years, which is the United Nations’ definition. The use of this age group is in line with other studies in LAC (e.g., World Bank 2005e) and necessary because of data availability. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that a clearly defined age group used to identify youth is merely a proxy for a stage in a young person’s life. The transition from dependence (childhood) to independence (adulthood) involves challenges in connection with moving from school to labor market, moving from the parents’ household to a new household and establishing close relationships outside the family

> 5 World Development Indicators 2005.

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