Through our lens of youth development, we study:
- Labor markets
- Youth pathways
- Employer demand
- Institutional barriers
- Emerging disruptions
Why IYF conducts research
This grounds our programs in evidence before they’re built. Our youth labor market research is operational, not theoretical. It helps partners understand what’s really happening, where opportunity is growing, what barriers are getting in the way, and what solutions are most likely to work.
We combine data with lived experience, analyzing job vacancies, wages, investment trends, foreign direct investment, education supply, employer needs, youth voice, ecosystem dynamics, and implementation realities. In some projects, young people go further: they help define the questions, gather insight, interpret what they learn, and shape the solutions that follow.
Our workforce development research doesn’t stop at findings. We translate that insight into action: curricula, tools, pilots, partnerships, policy recommendations, and programs that can scale.
What our research helps partners do
Our youth economic opportunity research helps our partners and collaborators:
- Identify sectors where opportunity is growing and jobs can support mobility
- Diagnose gaps between employer demand and education supply
- Understand how young people navigate barriers, choices, and systems
- Engage young people as researchers, designers, and decision-makers when their lived experience is essential to understanding what needs to change
- Map the actors, incentives, and relationships that shape implementation
- Build stronger partnerships among employers, schools, governments, and communities
- Test and refine solutions before they’re implemented at scale
- Turn evidence into practical strategies, tools, curricula, and youth workforce programs
Our research in action
We turn our research into actionable programs and tools.
Our skills gap research makes labor markets easier to understand by showing where employer demand, training systems, and youth opportunity are out of sync. IYF combines labor market data, employer validation, and systems analysis to identify practical ways to align training with real opportunities.
We combined fieldwork, surveys, and interviews to design more realistic reintegration pathways in Mexico.
We contributed to national-level thinking on how young people can thrive in an AI-disrupted labor market.
We helped define workforce investment needs for the energy transition and the green skills gap.
IYF collaborates with leading organizations, including the Federation of American Scientists and Convergence Analysis, to connect youth workforce expertise to national conversations on clean energy, AI, and the future of work.
We helped translate Mexico’s EV transition into an employer-validated competency model and curriculum pathway.
We support young people to investigate the issues affecting their lives, generate evidence, and use what they learn to shape programs, grantmaking, advocacy, and systems change.
