The rural population in Africa south of the Sahara is growing, and its rural economy is still underdeveloped. The pressure to create jobs in rural areas is therefore particularly acute. There is cause for optimism, however. Evidence suggests that agriculture is transforming in many African countries, albeit slowly, and that youth are often participating in this process. Further research is needed to accelerate this progress.
This book brings together recent findings from quantitative and qualitative research from across Africa to illuminate how young men and women engage with the rural economy, imagine their futures and how development policies and interventions find traction (or not) with these realities. Through framing, overview and evidence-based chapters, it provides a critical perspective on current discourse, research and development interventions around youth and rural development. It is organised around commonly-made foundational claims: that large numbers of young people are leaving rural areas; have no interest in agriculture; cannot access land; are stuck in permanent waithood; that the rural economy provides (or can provide) a wealth of opportunity; and that they can be the engine of rural transformation. It draws from existing literature and new analysis arising from several multi-country and multi-disciplinary studies, focusing on gender and other aspects of social difference. It is a major contribution to current debates and development policy about youth, agriculture and employment in rural Africa.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Sub-Saharan Africa's rural population is growing rapidly, and more young people are entering the labour market every year. This raises serious policy questions. Can rural economies absorb enough job seekers? Could better-educated youth transform Africa's rural economies by adopting new technologies and starting businesses? Are policymakers responding to the youth employment challenge? Or will there be widespread unemployment, social instability, and an exodus to cities and abroad? Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa: Beyond Stylized Facts uses survey data to build a nuanced understanding of the constraints and opportunities facing rural youth in Africa. Addressing the questions of Africa's rural youth is currently hampered by major gaps in our knowledge and stylized facts from cross-country trends or studies that do not focus on the core issues. Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa takes a different approach, drawing on household and firm surveys from selected African countries with an explicit focus on rural youth. It argues that a balance between alarm and optimism is warranted, and that Africa's "youth bulge" is not an unprecedented challenge. Jobs in rural areas are limited, but agriculture is transforming and youth are participating, adopting new technologies and running businesses. Governments have adopted youth employment as a priority, but policies often do not address the specific needs of rural populations. Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa emphasizes that by going beyond stylized facts and drawing on more granular analysis, we can design effective policies to turn Africa's youth problem into an opportunity for rural transformation.
Many people believe that Africa will struggle to create jobs for its rapidly-growing population, and that rural youth will eventually migrate to cities or other countries. This book uses survey data to create a nuanced understanding of the constraints and opportunities facing rural youth in Africa.
Today, the global youth population is at its highest ever and still growing, with the highest proportion of youth living in Africa and Asia, and a majority of them in rural areas. Young people in rural areas face the double challenge of age-specific vulnerabilities and underdevelopment of rural areas. While agriculture absorbs the majority of rural workers in developing countries, low pay and poor working conditions make it difficult to sustain rural livelihoods.
This paper is motivated by the consistent portrayal, within current policy discourse, of agriculture and the broader rural economy in Africa as domains of opportunity for rural youth. It presents a new conceptualization of landscapes of rural youth opportunity, where these landscapes reflect an individual's reading of the complex interplay between economic geography; local history, agrarian relations, institutions and politics; social and cultural norms; family influences; education and experience; aspirations and preferences; and access to resources. The argument is that it is essential to acknowledge the importance of opportunity structures, and avoid anything that suggests that individual characteristics, such as agency, aspirations, skills, entrepreneurial behaviour and “good choices” should be the primary considerations in relation to an “investing in youth” strategy. The paper also presents new empirical analysis of young people's engagement with the rural economy using LSMS data from six African countries.
The much heralded growth and transformation of many economies in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade continues to receive prominent attention in academic scholarship and among policy practitioners. An apparent feature about this transformation, however, is that Africa’s youth appear to have been left out. This book critically examines the extent and consequences of the marginalization of African youth. It questions conventional wisdoms about data trends, aspirational goals, and common policy interventions surrounding Africa’s youth that have been variously propagated in both the development studies literature and in mainstream donor policy reports. The book explores macro trends from both a temporal and cross-regional perspective in order to highlight what is distinct about contemporary African youth and whether their prospects and behaviours do actually vary from their counterparts in other regions of the world or from previous generations of African youth. Such studies include cross-country analyses of youth employment patterns and modes of political participation, in-depth examination of the behaviours and aspirations of the urban youth, and critical reflections on the impact of rural employment initiatives, vocational education, and learnership programmes. The incorporation of multiple methods and disciplines, as well as its attention to policy issues, ensures that the book will be of great interest to graduate students, researchers, and professional researchers whose work lies at the intersection of African area studies and development studies as well as those focused on development economics, political science, and public policy and administration.
"Theories underlying the relationship between urbanization and transformation are being challenged by trends in Sub-Saharan African countries, since many have yet to observe their own "green" or industrial revolutions, despite moderate urbanization. Africa's trajectory is very different than those of other developing regions, a main reason for which is the region's significant "youth bulge" and the lack of a labor market outlet for this growing subpopulation. In many countries, the youth are driving the (albeit slow) movement out of agriculture, yet rather than migrating to urban areas, many are finding (usually informal) work in secondary cities, their peri-urban spaces, and the rural nonfarm economy. This book examines the overall trends in youth migration, policies, and political activism, then looks specifically at five African case studies to identify key trends and provide recommendations on encouraging youth to spur structural change. Conclusions reached in this book include that the rate of structural transformation varies among countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, but in most cases, it is the youth who are driving these changes. Education, access to financial services, and agricultural productivity contribute to this structural transformation and can act as pushes or pulls out of agriculture for the youth. However, when structural transformation policies are not pro-poor or inclusive, it can result in higher levels of youth under- and unemployment. Thus, the conclusions point to recommendations focusing on agricultural productivity, the rural nonfarm economy and informal sectors especially along agriculture value chains, access to finance and savings, infrastructure, and education."
