IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp7467.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Youth Employment in Africa: New Evidence and Policies from Swaziland

Author

Listed:
  • Brixiova, Zuzana

    (UNECA)

  • Kangoye, Thierry

    (African Development Bank)

Abstract

Drawing on the 2007 and 2010 Swaziland Labor Force Surveys, this paper provides first systematic evidence on recent youth employment challenges in Swaziland, a small, land-locked, middle-income country with one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Africa. The paper first documents the various labor market disadvantages faced by the Swazi youth, such as high unemployment and discouragement, and how they changed from 2007 to 2010. A multinomial logit regression analysis is then carried out to analyze the socio-economic drivers of the unfavorable youth labor market outcomes on the supply side. Since many of the factors that can unlock the employment potential of the Swazi youth are on the demand side of the labor market, the paper examines the barriers to job creation and youth entrepreneurship. It concludes with experiences of other countries that could inform design of more effective interventions for youth employment in Swaziland.

Suggested Citation

  • Brixiova, Zuzana & Kangoye, Thierry, 2013. "Youth Employment in Africa: New Evidence and Policies from Swaziland," IZA Discussion Papers 7467, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7467
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp7467.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Felipe, Jesus, 2012. "Tracking the Middle-Income Trap: What is It, Who is in It, and Why? Part 2," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 307, Asian Development Bank.
    2. International Finance Corporation & World Bank, 2013. "Doing Business 2013 : Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises [Regulaciones inteligentes para las pequeñas y medianas empresas : resumen ejecutivo (Vol. 2)]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 11857.
    3. Léonce Ndikumana & Mina Baliamoune-Lutz & Zuzana Brixiová, 2011. "Credit Constraints And Productive Entrepreneurship In Africa," Working Papers wp276, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    4. Jesus Felipe & Arnelyn Abdon & Utsav Kumar, 2012. "Tracking the Middle-income Trap: What Is It, Who Is in It, and Why?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_715, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Schoof, Ulrich., 2006. "Stimulating youth entrepreneurship : barriers and incentives to enterprise start-ups by young people," ILO Working Papers 993881573402676, International Labour Organization.
    6. Stampini Marco & Verdier-Chouchane Audrey, 2011. "Labor Market Dynamics in Tunisia: The Issue of Youth Unemployment," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-35, September.
    7. Zuzana Brixiova, 2010. "Unlocking Productive Entrepreneurship in Africa’s Least Developed Countries," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 22(3), pages 440-451.
    8. Stefano Scarpetta & Anne Sonnet & Thomas Manfredi, 2010. "Rising Youth Unemployment During The Crisis: How to Prevent Negative Long-term Consequences on a Generation?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 106, OECD Publishing.
    9. International Labour Office., 2012. "Global employment trends for youth : 2012," Global Employment Trends Reports 994802013402676, International Labour Office, Economic and Labour Market Analysis Department.
    10. John C. Anyanwu, 2013. "Characteristics and Macroeconomic Determinants of Youth Employment in Africa," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 25(2), pages 107-129, June.
    11. Mmantsetsa Marope, 2010. "The Education System in Swaziland : Training and Skills Development for Shared Growth and Competitiveness," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5930.
    12. World Bank & International Finance Corporation, "undated". "Doing Business in Italy 2013 : Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises," World Bank Publications - Reports 13331, The World Bank Group.
    13. Felipe, Jesus, 2012. "Tracking the Middle-Income Trap: What is It, Who is in It, and Why? Part 1," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 306, Asian Development Bank.
    14. Richard K. Johanson & Arvil V. Adams, 2004. "Skills Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15028.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brixiová, Zuzana & Ncube, Mthuli & Bicaba, Zorobabel, 2015. "Skills and Youth Entrepreneurship in Africa: Analysis with Evidence from Swaziland," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 11-26.
    2. Lucilla Maria Bruni & Jamele Rigolini & Sara Troiano, 2016. "Forever Young?," World Bank Publications - Reports 24996, The World Bank Group.
    3. Gill,Indermit S. & Kharas,Homi, 2015. "The middle-income trap turns ten," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7403, The World Bank.
    4. Servaas van der Berg & Marizanne Knoesen, 2018. "Demand for education in the five countries of the South African Customs Union – Projections and implications," Working Papers 20/2018, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zuzana Brixiova & Thierry Kangoye, 2013. "Working Paper 175 - Youth Employment in Africa: New Evidence and Policies from Swaziland," Working Paper Series 472, African Development Bank.
    2. Satoru Kumagai, 2015. "The Middle-Income Trap from the Viewpoint of Trade Structures: Are the Geese Trapped or Still Flying?," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(03), pages 1-23.
    3. Lavopa, Alejandro & Szirmai, Adam, 2018. "Structural modernisation and development traps. An empirical approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 59-73.
    4. Brixiová, Zuzana & Ncube, Mthuli & Bicaba, Zorobabel, 2015. "Skills and Youth Entrepreneurship in Africa: Analysis with Evidence from Swaziland," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 11-26.
    5. Janusz Heller & Rafal Warzala, 2018. "Is Poland in a middle income trap? A theoretical and empirical analysis," Ekonomia i Prawo, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 17(4), pages 367-381, December.
    6. Glawe, Linda & Wagner, Helmut, 2017. "The Deep Determinants at More Subtle Stages of Development: The Example of the Middle-Income Trap Phenomenon," CEAMeS Discussion Paper Series 11/2017, University of Hagen, Center for East Asia Macro-economic Studies (CEAMeS), revised 2017.
    7. Lim, King Yoong, 2019. "Industrial Transformation With Heterogeneous Labor And Foreign Experts," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(8), pages 3225-3266, December.
    8. Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos, 2021. "Brazil's quasi-stagnation and East-Asia growth: A new-developmental explanation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 500-508.
    9. Tan Khee Giap & Sasidaran Gopalan & Nursyahida Ahmad, 2018. "Growth Slowdown Analysis for Indonesia’s Subnational Economies: An Empirical Investigation," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(03), pages 1-36, September.
    10. Matthew McCartney, 2017. "Bangladesh 2000-2017: Sustainable Growth, Technology and the Irrelevance of Productivity," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 22(Special E), pages 183-198, September.
    11. Anthony William Donald Anastasi, 2024. "The middle-income trap and foreign direct investment: a mixed-methods approach centered on Mexico and South Korea," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    12. Yoshino, Naoyuki & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad & Otsuka, Miyu, 2020. "Determinants of international remittance inflow in Asia-Pacific middle-income countries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 29-43.
    13. Lili Wang & Yi Wen, 2018. "Escaping the Middle-Income Trap: A Cross-Country Analysis on the Patterns of Industrial Upgrading," Working Papers 2018-1, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    14. Gemici, Evrim & Gemici, Zafer, 2021. "A Comparative Study on Turkey’s Science and Technology (S&T) Indicators," OSF Preprints csyud, Center for Open Science.
    15. Prajapati Vishwajeet Singh & Priya Ashutosh & Pradhan Vikas, 2023. "The middle-income trap – a problem of definition and empirical research," Economic and Regional Studies / Studia Ekonomiczne i Regionalne, Sciendo, vol. 16(3), pages 459-472, September.
    16. Kang, Byeongwoo & Nabeshima, Kaoru & Cheng, Fang-Ting, 2015. "Avoiding the middle income trap : indigenous innovative effort vs foreign innovative effort," IDE Discussion Papers 509, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    17. Linda Glawe & Helmut Wagner, 2016. "The Middle-Income Trap: Definitions, Theories and Countries Concerned—A Literature Survey," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 58(4), pages 507-538, December.
    18. G.A. Diah Utari, 2014. "Growth and Inequality in Indonesia: Does Kuznets Curve Hold?," EcoMod2014 7353, EcoMod.
    19. Kluve, Jochen & Puerto, Susanna & Robalino, David & Romero, José Manuel & Rother, Friederike & Stöterau, Jonathan & Weidenkaff, Felix & Witte, Marc, 2016. "Do Youth Employment Programs Improve Labor Market Outcomes? A Systematic Review," Ruhr Economic Papers 648, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    20. Vivarelli, Marco, 2018. "Globalisation, structural change and innovation in emerging economies: The impact on employment and skills," MERIT Working Papers 2018-037, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Africa; policies; youth employment and entrepreneurship; multivariate analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7467. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.