Becoming a wage earned or a self-employed: Does Young Educational Level determine the Choice of the Working Labour Force Status in Cameroon?

If employment is recognized as a key driver for growth, development and well-being improvement, human capital is probably a main determinant of the labour force participation. By often analyzing this relationship in wage earning jobs, studies used to leave self-employment untreated despite the fact that its proportion is growing significantly in several countries. This leads us to the following question: does the accumulating human capital determine access to all forms of employment? Focusing on young people, this article analyzes effects of the educational level used as a proxy of the accumulating human capital on the choice of the working labour force status in Cameroon. Using discrete-choice models on data drew from the second Employment and Informal Sector Survey carried out by the National Institute of Statistics, empirical findings reveal that educated young people are more likely to make a decision to work as wage earned and the corresponding probability rises with the increasing of their educational levels. However, the willingness to become self-employed decline with the rising of the educational level. Therefore, compared to the decision to work as a wage earned, becoming a self-employed does not appear as a human capital outcome. This paradoxical result for a low wage economy suggests a reform of educational and training systems starting at least from high school with emphasizes in sectors with a high potential of self-employment development and a setting-up of an apprenticeship plan.

Becoming a wage earned or a self-employed: Does Young Educational Level determine the Choice of the Working Labour Force Status in Cameroon?

If employment is recognized as a key driver for growth, development and well-being improvement, human capital is probably a main determinant of the labour force participation. By often analyzing this relationship in wage earning jobs, studies used to leave self-employment untreated despite the fact that its proportion is growing significantly in several countries. This leads us to the following question: does human capital accumulated determine access to all forms of employment? Focusing on young people, this article analyzes effects of educational level used as a proxy of the human capital accumulated on the choice of the working labour force status in Cameroon. Using discrete-choice models on data draw from the second Employment and Informal Sector Survey carried out by the National Institute of Statistics, empirical findings reveal that educated young people are more disposed to make a decision to work as wage earned and the corresponding probability rises with the increasing of their educational levels. However, their willingness to become self-employed decline with the rising of their educational levels. Therefore, compared to the decision to work as a wage earned, becoming a self-employed does not appear as a human capital outcome. This paradoxical result for a low wage economy suggests a reform of the educational or training system starting at least in high school level with emphasizes in sectors with a high potential of self-employment and a setting-up of an apprenticeship plan.

1196Trajectories of disability throughout adolescence and labour force status as a young adult

Background Young people with disabilities have poorer labour force outcomes than their peers without disabilities. Existing studies typically assess disability at one time point, obscuring potential variation in the experience of disability over time. This study aimed to identify trajectories of disability during childhood/adolescence and assess associations between trajectory membership and labour force status in young adulthood. Methods Group-based trajectory modeling was applied to disability status information from Waves 2-7 (age 4/5 to 16/17 years) of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children; labour force participation (employed, unemployed, not in the labour force (NILF)) was measured at Wave 8 (18/19 years). Two logistic regression models assessed the relationship between trajectory group membership and labour force participation, adjusted for confounders. Results Four trajectory groups were identified: low (75.5% of cohort), low increasing (9.7%), high decreasing (10.9%), and consistently high (3.9%) prevalence of disability. Compared to individuals in the low trajectory (reference group), individuals in the consistently high trajectory had increased odds of being NILF at age 18/19 years (AOR 3.48, 95%CI 2.14, 5.68). Individuals in the low increasing trajectory had increased odds of unemployment at age 18/19 years compared to the reference group (AOR 2.93, 95%CI 1.91-4.48). Conclusions Results suggest that early experiences of disability among young Australians may differentially impact future labour force outcomes. Key messages Additional supports to prepare young people for the labour force should focus on individuals with consistently high or increasing prevalence of disability trajectories.

Does disability modify the relationship between labour force status and psychological distress among young people?

ObjectiveTo examine the association between labour force status, including young people who were unemployed and having problems looking for work, and psychological distress one year later. We then assessed whether this association is modified by disability status.MethodsWe used three waves of cohort data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth. We fitted logistic regression models to account for confounders of the relationship between labour force status (employed, not in the labour force, unemployed and having problems looking for work) at age 21 years and psychological distress at age 22 years. We then estimated whether this association was modified by disability status at age 21 years.ResultsBeing unemployed and having problems looking for work at age 21 years was associated with odds of psychological distress that were 2.48 (95% CI 1.95 to 3.14) times higher than employment. There was little evidence for additive effect measure modification of this association by disability status (2.52, 95% CI −1.21 to 6.25).ConclusionsYoung people who were unemployed and having problems looking for work had increased odds of poor mental health. Interventions should focus on addressing the difficulties young people report when looking for work, with a particular focus on supporting those young people facing additional barriers to employment such as young people with disabilities.