# 1 Introduction: The entry‐into‐employment challenge

Youth is universally a distinct human developmental stage, a time of transition marked by critical decisions that affect the future of the individual and the broader society. A positive youth trajectory concludes with the development of a mature adult who has a positive sense of self, has developed agency and impulse control, and a set of core competencies and skills for engaging effectively with the economy and society. A negative trajectory does not develop self‐esteem and agency, and concludes with risky and or destructive behavior such as teen pregnancy, crime and violence, self‐destructive health habits, and disengagement from society, all of which can lead to household poverty and lower economic growth (World Bank, 2006). With so much at stake, it is clear why youth development is an important economic development issue.

Youth constitute a high share of the population in low income countries, especially in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), where one‐third of the world’s projected youth population will live by 2050 (AfDB, 2015). These individuals represent an enormous opportunity and resource, yet creating the circumstances to realize that potential is a big challenge.

Economic and social development requires youth to be able to find opportunities commensurate with their skills and abilities, allowing them to transition into stable livelihoods<sup>2</sup> . Although educational attainment is rising, the quality of that education is often weak, as measured by cognitive skill development (Cloutier et al., 2011). Nor is the educational experience in low‐income countries designed to build the socio‐emotional and problem‐solving skills that help youth navigate a changing economic landscape (Filmer and Fox, 2014).

Governments in lower‐income countries are increasingly looking for ways to improve youth employability and earnings, but regularly fail to recognize that the youth employment problem is simply a subset of the overall employment and earnings challenge in low‐income countries, which is, in turn, a structural transformation challenge. In other words, employment opportunities in the economy will improve only with economic transformation—the creation of new more productive economic entities that use new technology, and increase productivity among existing firms and farms. When that transformation occurs, youth normally secure a large share of the new opportunities it creates, commensurate with their share in the labor force (Filmer and Fox, 2014). If structural transformation does not progress, opportunities will be limited for all labor force participants – youth or adults. Thus, the shortage of high‐earning employment opportunities in an economy is not a youth specific problem. It is simply one of many economic constraints that must be reckoned with by all in the labor force (and addressed by economic development policy).

For the most part, the youth‐specific challenge – the challenge youth face that older adults do not – is entry into employment. This is the problem that youth‐specific programs need to address, and this is the issue addressed in this paper. To do so, this paper argues that youth employment interventions should first diagnose the actual constraints that youth face in accessing the specific segments of the economy where employment opportunities are growing. Although increased educational enrollment has generated greater aspirations and demand for wage employment from the youth population, if most employment is still found in production of goods and services by household farms and firms with limited outside labor, this paper argues that programs to help youth should target opportunities in this

> _2 In developing countries, the definition of employment is broader than wage or salaried positions with an employer. Many individuals hold jobs that are better characterized as ‘activities that generate actual or imputed income, monetary or in‐kind, formal or informal.’ Individuals often perform multiple activities or jobs, which in aggregate constitute a ‘mixed livelihood’._

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