Egyptian youth wash away anti-government graffiti at the foot of an obelisk on the Qasr al-Nil Bridge leading to Tahrir Square. Protesters and volunteers cleaned up Tahrir Square and surrounding areas in the days following Hosni Mubarak's resignation during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, as a gesture of a new beginning. Photo: wiki commons.

Earning a fair wage and owning a home are now the two highest priorities for young people in the Middle East, displacing “living in a democracy” as the greatest aspiration of regional youth, according to the findings of the latest ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey, the largest study of its kind of the region’s largest demographic group.

The survey polled 2,500 Arabs aged 18 to 24 in 12 Middle Eastern states one year after the start of the Arab Spring.

Very few respondents in almost all surveyed countries said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the biggest obstacle facing Middle East. The number was lowest in Egypt, at 10 percent. The number was also low in most of the Gulf emirates. Civil unrest and lack of democracy far outstripped the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a concern in most Arab countries.