Analysis of the 2025 Budget for Youth Policy

Abstract

This article reviews the progress made in the implementation of the Youth Policy Action Plan 2021~2024, and provides an overview of key changes in the youth policy programs included in the 2025 budget. The Youth Dream Housing Loan is a newly introduced initiative. Another new addition is the Three-Pronged Open Job Package. The National Scholarship program has extended to cover families belonging to the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution. The Youth Leap Account features increased financial support. These changes represent, notably, the expanded reach of youth policies, which extends from jobs and housing to education and asset-building. These policies are evolving in the direction of providing youth with more opportunities for education and empowering them to become economically independent. Such developments notwithstanding, the link between youth policy budgets and related programs remains indefinite. In the context of the budget classification system, youth policy initiatives are administered not even as “constituent projects,” but at the “sub-constituent” level, which adds to the difficulty of assessing their performance in connection with their designated budgets. For the preparation of the Second Youth Policy Masterplan (2026~2030) and its action plan, work needs to be put into making a more systematic way of aligning budgets with programs with a view to establishing an effective policy assessment system.