After the Arab Spring shook governments throughout the Middle East in the early 2010s, youth activism has increased as states across the Gulf region witness their youth majorities evolve into a working-age population with simmering tensions over corruption, obstacles to economic empowerment, and the deteriorating welfare state. With the wealth of the Gulf States based largely on hydrocarbon resources, these states share a unique economic situation, and often are termed “rentier economies.” The resulting institutional ecosystem is extractive by design and undermines innovation at its core. Thus, the capacity of the young to attain a demographic dividend-- a sweet spot in the age structure that can be the highest opportunity for economic productivity--will be limited for decades to come if not framed by the appropriate institutional design and policies. This opportunity to capitalize on this productive age structure and increase economic productivity is an exigent matter of both political and economic stability in the Gulf rentier states along with the broader Middle East. Existing currents of thinking are asking broad questions related to how rentier economies can diversify, why the resource curse results in various deterministic pathways of economic development, and how the demographic dividend contributes to economic growth. Yet, the literature on the resource curse, rentier economies, and the demographic dividend has failed to highlight the connection between political forces and the economic policies that affect societies with youth bulges. Economic reform focused on innovation-led development is key to reaping the demographic dividend. A central goal of this study is to illuminate this gap and to point to alternative strategies to make the most of an extraordinary moment of opportunity that may only arise once in a society’s history. Theoretically, the dependency on oil wealth creates distinct interactions between the institutional environment of the private sector and the political logic of stakeholders such as the business elite and the labor force. In this context, my research question is: How does state-business relations affect the necessary economic reform to foster economic development needed for rentier economies to convert youth bulges into demographic dividends? In this study, through 46 semi-structured interviews and a comparison of three case studies –Kuwait, Qatar, and Kuwait –during the post-Arab Spring era, I will draw on theoretical literature on the resource curse to explain how state-business relations impact the prospect of attaining a demographic dividend in rentier states.