📄 social_science

Youth Development and Psychosocial Outcomes Among Gen Z in Nepal’s 2025 Protest Movement

This cross-sectional study of 146 Gen Z youth in Nepal's 2025 protest movement reveals that developmental maturity, academic engagement, and socioemotional competencies are more strongly associated with psychosocial well-being than family, educational, or digital factors, while highlighting the need for culturally informed research on politically engaged emerging adults in South Asia.

Original authors: Bhoj B. Balayar

Published 2026-07-28

📖 4 min read☕ Coffee break read

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Bhoj B. Balayar

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine the human mind as a garden. For decades, scientists have been studying how different parts of that garden grow. Some researchers look at how the soil (our family and friends) affects the flowers. Others study the weather (our digital world and news feeds) or the tools we use (our education). A major idea in this field is "Positive Youth Development," which suggests that when young people have supportive relationships and chances to contribute to their community, they grow stronger, happier, and more confident. Another concept is "Emerging Adulthood," a special time in life—roughly ages 18 to 29—where people are like explorers testing out who they are before settling into their adult roles. But here's the big question: What happens to this garden when the weather gets stormy? When young people step into the middle of a massive political protest, does it help them bloom, or does it wilt their spirits? This isn't just about politics; it's about understanding how the intense experience of fighting for change shapes a young person's happiness, self-worth, and ability to handle emotions.

This paper takes a deep dive into that stormy garden by looking at 146 young people (Gen Z) in Nepal who joined the massive 2025 protest movement. The researchers wanted to see what was linked to how happy, confident, and emotionally skilled these protesters felt. They checked a bunch of things: Did their parents approve of the protests? How much time did they spend on social media? Did they study hard? Did they learn about kindness or non-violence in school? They treated the protesters like a team of explorers and asked, "What makes you feel good right now?"

The results were a bit surprising, like finding that the strongest trees in a storm weren't the ones with the biggest roots in the soil, but the ones that were just a bit older and had a better internal compass. First, the study found that social-emotional competence (a fancy way of saying "being good at understanding your own feelings and getting along with others") was strongly linked to being happier. If a young protester was good at managing their emotions, they tended to report higher happiness. However, the study also found a weird, small twist: being good at social skills was actually linked to slightly lower self-esteem in this specific group, which the authors admit is a puzzle they can't fully solve yet.

When it came to the other factors, the paper suggests that many things we thought would matter didn't show up as major players in this specific group. For instance, social media use (how many hours a day they spent scrolling) didn't seem to make them happier or more confident, nor did it make them worse off. Similarly, whether their parents were supportive of the protests or not, or whether they had taken classes on civic rights or kindness, didn't have a clear, strong link to their happiness or self-esteem in the final analysis.

The only things that really stood out were study time and age. The more time a young person spent studying, the happier they reported being. And the older the participants were (within this group of young adults), the better they were at handling their social and emotional lives. The researchers are careful to say that because they only took a snapshot in time (a "cross-sectional" study), they can't prove that studying causes happiness or that age causes better skills; they just found these things happening together. They also note that their group was mostly male, so these findings might look different if they included more women or people who didn't protest.

In short, this study suggests that for these young Nepali protesters, their internal maturity and their daily habits (like studying) were more closely tied to their well-being than the external factors like family approval or social media habits. It's a reminder that even in the middle of a huge political storm, the quiet, steady growth of a person's own skills and maturity might be the most reliable anchor for their happiness.

Technical Summary: Youth Development and Psychosocial Outcomes Among Gen Z in Nepal's 2025 Protest Movement

Problem Statement and Context
This study addresses a significant gap in developmental and civic engagement literature regarding South Asia, specifically Nepal. While extensive research exists on youth activism in Western contexts, little is known about the psychosocial implications of youth-led political mobilization in collectivistic, family-oriented societies. The research focuses on the 2025 Gen Z protest movement in Nepal, a period marked by significant sociopolitical upheaval, including a government-imposed social media ban, corruption concerns, and violent police escalation that resulted in casualties. The study investigates how demographic, behavioral, familial, educational, and digital factors correlate with three specific psychosocial outcomes among protest-engaged youth: subjective happiness, self-esteem, and socioemotional competence (SEC). The research is grounded in Positive Youth Development (PYD) Theory and Emerging Adulthood Theory, examining whether supportive relational contexts and developmental assets (the "5 Cs") function similarly in this non-Western, high-stress environment.

Methodology

Design: A cross-sectional survey design was employed. The study explicitly notes that findings are correlational rather than causal due to the single time-point data collection and the exclusive focus on participants already engaged in the protests.
Participants: The sample consisted of 146 Generation Z participants (aged 18+) residing in Nepal who participated in the 2025 protest movement. Recruitment utilized a snowball sampling method via known activist groups and peer networks. The sample was predominantly male (93.2%), single (78.1%), and enrolled in undergraduate education (58.9%).
Measures:
- Outcomes: Subjective happiness (Subjective Happiness Scale), self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale), and socioemotional competence (Social Emotional Competence Questionnaire, SECQ).
- Predictors: Demographic variables (age, gender, GPA, education level, relationship status); behavioral factors (study time, social media use duration); relational factors (parental approval of protests); and educational exposures (civic/moral education, kindness/empathy instruction, nonviolence training).
Analysis: Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and hierarchical linear regression. Demographic variables were entered in Block 1, followed by behavioral and contextual predictors in Block 2 to assess incremental explanatory power.

Key Results

Correlational Findings: A moderate positive correlation was found between socioemotional competence (SEC) and happiness ( $r = .37, p < .01$ ). Conversely, a small negative correlation was observed between self-esteem and SEC ( $r = -.17, p < .05$ ). No significant association was found between happiness and self-esteem.
Regression Analysis (Happiness): The final model explained 10.3% of the variance in happiness. The only statistically significant predictor was study time, where greater time spent studying was associated with higher happiness scores. Demographic, family, and digital variables were not significant.
Regression Analysis (Self-Esteem): The model explained 12.3% of the variance. No individual predictors reached statistical significance. Study time showed a negative association approaching significance ( $p = .056$ ), but this did not meet conventional thresholds.
Regression Analysis (SEC): The final model was statistically significant, explaining 16.8% of the variance. Age was the only significant predictor ( $p = .020$ ), indicating that older participants reported higher levels of socioemotional competence.
Non-Significant Factors: Contrary to hypotheses, parental attitudes toward the protests, social media usage duration, relationship status, and exposure to civic/moral or nonviolence education were not significantly associated with any of the three psychosocial outcomes in the adjusted models.

Key Contributions and Claims
The paper claims three primary contributions to the literature:

Contextual Expansion: It extends research on youth civic engagement and psychosocial well-being to Nepal, an underrepresented South Asian context, challenging or testing the applicability of PYD and Emerging Adulthood frameworks in a collectivistic society.
Developmental Focus: It examines psychosocial functioning specifically among youth involved in a major episode of political mobilization during emerging adulthood, a period characterized by identity exploration and emotional variability.
Factor Evaluation: It evaluates the relative contribution of various environmental and behavioral factors, finding that developmental maturity (age), academic engagement (study time), and socioemotional competencies were more closely associated with psychosocial functioning than the family, educational, and digital variables examined.

Significance and Limitations
The authors position the study as a modest contribution that clarifies associations rather than establishing causality. The significance lies in identifying that, within this specific sample of protest-engaged Nepali youth, internal developmental assets and academic routines appear more robustly linked to well-being than external factors like parental approval or digital engagement intensity.

The paper explicitly acknowledges several limitations:

Generalizability: The sample is non-representative, heavily skewed toward males, English-proficient, and urban/educated youth, limiting applicability to the broader Nepali Gen Z population, including women, rural youth, and non-participants.
Methodological Constraints: The reliance on self-report measures introduces potential social desirability and recall biases. The cross-sectional design precludes causal inferences.
Measurement Issues: Several key constructs (e.g., parental approval, social media use) were measured using single-item indicators, which may lack the nuance to capture complex family dynamics or the qualitative nature of digital experiences.
Unexplained Variance: The regression models explained a relatively small proportion of variance (10–17%), suggesting that critical factors such as political efficacy, collective identity, trauma exposure, and peer support were not captured in this analysis.

The authors conclude that while developmental maturity and socioemotional skills are linked to well-being in this context, future research requires longitudinal designs, mixed methods, and more diverse samples to fully understand the developmental trajectories of youth during sociopolitical mobilization.

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