Policies for Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa

A qualitative analytical framework, policy discourse analysis, is applied to understand the prevalence of youth-targeting in national policies related to employment. Forty-seven policies from 13 Sub-Saharan African countries promulgated in 1996 to 2016 were selected for the evaluation, based on their direct or indirect relevance to youth employment via themes of development, rural transformation, and agriculture. The main findings show that policies focus more on promoting labour supply strategies, e.g. training programmes on entrepreneurship skills, rather than demand-side ones—such as reducing the constraints to business development and job creation at the sectoral level. Policies rarely touch on known constraints faced by youth, like their limited engagement in agribusiness activities and representation in policy dialogues. SSA policies with a youth employment lens associated to the different pillars of the Decent Work Agenda are assessed.

Troublemakers, Bystanders, and Pathbreakers

Do youth protest more than their older counterparts and is their main motivation for protest their preoccupation with unemployment? This chapter aims to answer these questions using various data sources of micro- and macro-economic time series data. Protest trends across cohorts from all Sub-Saharan African countries are first presented. A multivariate regression approach is then used to identify the significant drivers of mobilization using public opinion data. Although there are clear life cycle effects underlying protest behaviour such that younger individuals are more likely to protest than older ones, protest activity is a form of mobilization used by all age groups. For both young and old, education, engagement in activism, and deprivation of basic goods are strong predictors of protest regardless of time period. More recently, however, young people are more likely to protest if they are unemployed and if they lack trust in political institutions.

Cities and Rural Transformation

The chapter focuses on answering four broad questions relevant to economic transformation in Ghana. First, are patterns of rural employment changing with urbanization and do these changes have any spatial patterns that are associated with proximity to cities of different sizes? Secondly, what are the impacts of rural transformation on the youth in the rural areas? Thirdly, what are the impacts of urbanization on agricultural intensification for youth and non-youth? Finally, what are the welfare or income implications of the rural transformation that has created heterogeneous livelihood opportunities? Proximity to cities has a strong effect on the exit of rural households from agriculture, and this trend is stronger with increases in the size of the city. Only when considering youth-headed rural households, do they become more likely to exit agriculture everywhere including in northern districts with small cities. Technological adoption is higher among youth in the more urbanized areas. Rural poverty rates appear consistently lower among non-agricultural households.

Rural Nonfarm Enterprises in Tanzania’s Economic Transformation

The chapter explores the nature of rural nonfarm activities to better understand their contribution to the economic development and diversification of rural areas or rural transformation. Numerous data sources are used to demonstrate rural household participation in the nonfarm economy. They also reveal heterogeneity in firm productivity by sector. Using a probit analysis, we identify the characteristics of firms that make them more likely to fall into a category of ‘high potential’ firms in order to better understand the correlates of enterprise success in rural areas. We found the following for rural businesses: (i) those owned by females are less productive; (ii) businesses that operate full-time are more productive; (iii) businesses operated by owners who live in households that are not poor are more productive; (iv) owners who see their businesses as growing are more productive; and (v) businesses with more customers and regional (vs local) customers are more productive.

Can Migration be a Conduit for Transformative Youth Employment?

Migration has traditionally been considered a necessary component of the transformation process. However, without a green revolution or government-sponsored industrialization, which sparked the creation of jobs outside of the agricultural sector, it is unclear whether observed youth migration patterns in Africa correspond with occupation mobility. Panel data collected in four African countries are used to explore whether migration offers youth access to more transformative forms of employment following the traditional pathways of structural change. We present statistics on sectoral diversification, movement into high-return versus low-return non-agricultural occupations, as well as income growth by youth migration status. Our findings suggest migration is potentially welfare-enhancing. Secondary towns will be of increasing importance to attract talent and promote growth, given constraints on travel and risks of securing employment in urban locations.

Africa’s Rural Youth in the Global Context

Governments in Sub-Saharan Africa are under enormous pressure to create more and better jobs for the region’s young and rapidly growing population. This chapter discusses how Africa’s demographic and economic transition differs than other developing regions. It then draws on Timmer’s Four Stages of Agricultural Transformation to conceptualize the unique role of youth participation in modernizing Africa’s agricultural sectors and rural economies. Thematic chapters covering trends in youth migration, national policy, and politics, as well as country case studies are included to shed light on whether the traditional model of agricultural transformation is still relevant for Africa today. Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Senegal, and Tanzania feature as case studies due to distinctions in three key components of structural change: agricultural productivity growth, sectoral diversification, and speed of urbanization.

Rural Youth and Employment in Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s economy remains at a very early stage in its structural transformation. A puzzle presents itself as to how such growth can be maintained given its relatively low urbanization rate and its reliance on the agricultural sector as the primary form of employment. This chapter examines labour diversification in Ethiopia, focusing on youth, and explores current conditions that youth face in both the agricultural and nonfarm labour markets. Using data from the Ethiopia Socioeconomy Survey (ESS) and the National Labour Force Survey (NFLS), we explore current trends in labour diversification, along with youth nonfarm engagement in rural and small towns. We find that youth (ages 25 to 34 years) have a greater probability of working in nonfarm enterprises compared to mature individuals (age 35–64). However, wage labour opportunities remain scant in rural Ethiopia. The majority of individuals working in nonfarm employment are engaged in small-scale trade activities.

Change and Rigidity in Youth Employment Patterns in Malawi

This chapter seeks to determine whether the youth of Malawi are central to any changes occurring in employment patterns in the country, possibly drawing upon their increased levels of training, benefitting from higher agricultural production levels overall linked to the Farm Input Subsidy Program, and responding to increased pressures to obtain a livelihood elsewhere than on increasingly small agriculture landholdings. Little evidence can be found of any significant processes of transformation in the structure of Malawi’s economy or of youth being in the vanguard of any changes in cross-sectoral patterns of employment. The small growth in service sector employment is being driven by the activities of older youth and non-youth, while younger youth instead extend the length of their schooling. Multivariate regression analysis reveals nonfarm employment and educational attainment are strongly associated. The main limitations to youth employment are the few high-quality jobs in Malawi in which well-trained individuals can use their skills productively.

Conclusion

We answer the broader question of whether Timmer’s framework is relevant to development in Africa today drawing on findings from the chapters presented in this volume. We conclude with policy recommendations for sparking a youth-inclusive transformation given today’s challenges. First, providing incentives for young farmers to adopt improved agricultural technologies is key to enhancing productivity growth in the agricultural sector. Second, employment policies need to be restructured to focus on the RNFE and the informal sector. Third, improvements in rural access to finance and savings promotion are necessary to enable enterprises to expand and create more jobs for youth. Fourth, government investments in infrastructure and education are essential to increase market access to farmers and entrepreneurs and improve the quality of the labour force to attract additional investments from foreign and domestic firms.

Youth Mobility and its Role in Structural Transformation in Senegal

This chapter uses multiple data sources to illustrate the transitions made by youth over time either to the rural non-farm economy or to urban areas. Descriptives are given to the motivations and constraints youth face when engaging in the RNFE or in migrant labour. The findings suggest that there are limited rural employment opportunities for youth, leading to a slow pace of rural poverty reduction. Rural youth still work mainly in poor quality jobs in agriculture, although they increasingly try: (i) to diversify their and their family’s income by engaging in nonfarm employment, or (ii) to look for options outside rural areas by migration to urban areas or abroad. We review the main policies and programmes implemented in Senegal to examine potential for reform towards pro-transformative youth employment.