# **1. Introduction**

Sub-Saharan Africa is the youngest region in the world, and the world’s fastest-growing. Between 2010 and 2025, the number of people between 15 and 24 will grow to 250 million – a net increase of nearly 50 percent. Over the next decade, roughly one million young people will enter the labor market each month in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, these young people often enter the labor market too early and unprepared. Although access to education is growing, illiteracy remains high and schooling low: among the 32 Sub-Saharan African countries in the Barro-Lee (2010) data set, nearly 40 percent of women aged 15 and above have received no education at all; and the most recent (2007-2011) statistics in the World Bank’s _Edstats_ data reveal that female literacy is less than 60 percent, on average.<sup>1</sup> This lack of preparedness contributes to a growing problem of youth unemployment. Quantifying the level of unemployment is bedeviled by lack of data and measurement issues. Household and labor force surveys throughout Africa usually record unemployment rates of less than 10 percent,<sup>2</sup> but those figures belie the extent of underemployment and vulnerability. Those same surveys indicate that the vast majority of working adults have insecure work in the informal sector, on the family farm, or in lessproductive or unremunerated labor. The most recent labor force survey from Liberia mirrors these statistics: there are roughly 1.1 million people in the workforce, of whom 195,000 (about 18 percent) are engaged in wage employment; the remaining 900,000-plus workers (82 percent) are considered in vulnerable employment, working for themselves or working unpaid for their own households (LISGIS 2010).

Among young women (15-24) in Liberia, the unemployment rate is 8 percent, double the rate among young men (LISGIS 2010). Most of these gaps can be explained by differences across individuals, especially in educational attainment, skills training, and years of experience. But segregation, market segmentation, and discrimination do play a role in determining these individual characteristics. Women have fewer opportunities for education or training, less access to credit, a larger share of domestic responsibilities, and less independence and control over their own lives. In Liberia, women comprise half of the employed, but only about one-quarter of paid employment (LISGIS 2011).

Fourteen years of civil war in Liberia devastated the country’s infrastructure and institutions, and left a generation of young people with very low levels of education and training. Girls were particularly disadvantaged. In 2003, almost 60% of young girls and 40% of young boys had no formal schooling (ILO/UNICEF 2005). Data from the Demographic and Health survey shows that more than 40 percent of adult women have no education, compared to fewer than 20 percent of men, while 23 percent of women and 44 percent of men have some secondary schooling (DHS 2007). Happily, access to education is rising rapidly, especially for girls: according to the Liberian labor force survey from 2010, the ratio of girls to boys enrolled in primary school has risen from 72 in 2000 to 90 in 2009. Enrollment levels and sex ratios are lower among older children and youth, as they become increasingly engaged in

> 1 Both are unweighted averages; Barro-Lee comprises 32 countries with data from 2010; _Edstats_ comprises 43 countries with data from 2007-2011.

> 2 Defined as without work, available for work, and actively looking for work (LISGIS 2010).

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