Top Highlights

• It is not uncommon for research articles and blogs on youth employment in sub-Saharan Africa to open with a statement such as:
• These overarching statements are misleading. Why? Because they refer to the annual increments to the working-age population, not the labor force. The annual increments to the working-age population come from the net flows into the age group 15 and above—that is those who turn 15 in a specific year minus those 15 and above who die. But not everybody...
• Importantly, the labor force does not grow by the same increment, or even at the same rate, as the working-age population because most of those who turn 15 are still in school. Globally, the youth (age 15-24) labor force participation rate (LFPR) is a low 41 percent, and, in Africa, it is declining—for some very good reasons: As lower-income countr...
• For example, in Ghana, the youth (age 15-24) LFPR in 1960 was 64 percent, but by 2015, with many more youth in school, it had fallen to 43 percent. In 2018, for all sub-Saharan African low-income and lower-middle-income countries, the LFPR was estimated at 45 percent; for lower-middle-income countries worldwide it was estimated at 30 percent (World...
• Using an estimated youth LFPR of 45 percent implies that Africa’s labor force will grow by only about 8 million to 9 million people per year over the next 20 years. For a labor force currently estimated at 440 million people, this is a modest amount to absorb each year.

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