School-to-work transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: an overview

Analysis of school to work transition in Sub-Saharan Africa

By: Guarcello L et al.
Published by: Understanding Children's Work (UCW), Innocenti Research Centre , 2005
Via: Eldis

This study aims to generate and analyse a set of youth education and employment indicators based on survey data for a subset of 13 countries in the Sub Saharan Africa (SSA)region. Particular emphasis is put on measuring the initial transition from school to work for different groups of young people, and on identifying the factors affecting this transition. Findings are compared across the 13 countries. Main findings include:

• youth unemployment tends to be considerably higher in urban rather than in rural areas, and gender differences are not large. Youth never attending school experience a level of unemployment that is not substantially lower than that of youth with schooling (at least for a few years). SSA economies seem to have problems in absorbing such a low qualified workforce; uneducated youth appear to be stuck not only in low income jobs but also face a high risk of unemployment
• the estimated duration of the transition from school to work revealed substantial variation in the timing and length of the transition across the 13 countries examined. In general, female youth tend to leave school at an earlier age and transit to work more slowly than male youth, and rural youth tend to start the transition earlier and find employment more quickly than urban youth. The fact that youth unemployment rate is generally lower in rural areas is most likely due to the lower employment rate of youth that never attended school. The average duration of the transition was found to be very long – five years or longer – in eight of the 13 countries examined, suggesting young people in these countries are faced with substantial labour market entry problems upon leaving the school system
• for the transition route directly from inactivity to the labour market, the average age of entering employment for the first time was estimated. It was found that average age at first job for children never attending school is relatively high in several countries, suggesting that this group of school non-entrants is also frequently faced with difficulties in entering the labour market. At the same time, this was the group most likely to be involved in child labour, underscoring the important links between child labour and youth employment.