Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges, Constraints and Opportunities

Abstract

African demographics, economic structure, politics and globalisation trends combine into a perfect storm for Africa’s policy makers. The large cohort of youth entering Africa’s labour force is the best educated one the continent has seen, and Africa is witnessing its best growth performance in decades; yet jobs remain elusive in the formal wage sector. This is largely because African economies have hitherto failed to transform structurally from low productivity agriculture to higher productivity non-agricultural sectors and this, taken together with the high fertility and low infant mortality, has resulted in the structure of employment not changing much. This is an output from the ‘Delivering Inclusive Financial Development and Growth’ project