Download Free Youth Aspirations Perceptions Of Farming And Migration Decisions In Rural Sub Saharan Africa Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Youth Aspirations Perceptions Of Farming And Migration Decisions In Rural Sub Saharan Africa and write the review.

The study discusses the aspirations and preferences of youth in rural sub-Saharan Africa using a large-scale SMS-based survey data and complements it with an investigation on the causal effects of adolescent aspirations on migration decisions when youth in southwestern Ethiopia. The cross-country youth study shows that most rural youth in Africa prefer working in nonfarm economic sectors. It also finds that above half of the rural youth are undecided about their migration aspirations, providing an opportunity for governments to influence the rural out migration of youth. However, policymakers should also be equally aware that anti-poverty policy measures that simply improve the incomes of rural youth might have unpredictable and unintended consequences on their migration decisions. As a result, policy measures may have to also influence the perceptions of youth toward farming and rural life, and to make rural areas more attractive to the youth. Taking southwestern Ethiopia as a case in point, it was found that above half the adolescents have negative perceptions about farming (both farming life and the pre-requisites to become a farmer). The results also show that educational and occupational aspirations during adolescence exert differing effects on migration decisions after four years. That is, while those who aspired to attain more years of schooling are unlikely to out-migrate within this time period, their counterparts who aspired to have high socio-economic status occupations tend to out-migrate from the respective areas. The study concludes that the out-migration of youth from rural areas and small towns may not be only due to push factors such as lack of farmland, but it could also be due to their aspirations to work in high socio-economic status occupations which are not often found in the rural areas. Thus, African countries should work to make rural areas and farming more attractive to the aspiring youth such as through improving access to technology, developing infrastructure, and providing support to rural non-farm sectors expansion.
This paper examines the intersections between youth access to land, migration decisions and employment opportunities using nationally representative and multi-year data from multiple African countries. We document evidence on the evolving dynamics in land distribution and ownership patterns, the effect of land access on youth livelihood choices and development of rental and sales market in the region. The report highlights six key findings: First, a progressively smaller proportion of young people are inheriting land due to land scarcity. Second, rural youth who do inherit land will need to wait longer to gain access to it because of significantly longer adult life spans. Third, land scarcity has been driving rapid changes in the land ownership and distribution patterns over the past decade and shaping the employment and migration decisions of rural youth. Fourth, the share of individual labour time devoted to farming is declining over time across age categories and gender, signifying that continued economic transformation processes are underway in Africa.
Many people believe that Africa will struggle to create jobs for its rapidly-growing population, and that rural youth will eventually migrate to cities or other countries. This book uses survey data to create a nuanced understanding of the constraints and opportunities facing rural youth in Africa.
This book brings together recent findings from quantitative and qualitative research from across Africa to illuminate how young men and women engage with the rural economy, imagine their futures and how development policies and interventions find traction (or not) with these realities. Through framing, overview and evidence-based chapters, it provides a critical perspective on current discourse, research and development interventions around youth and rural development. It is organised around commonly-made foundational claims: that large numbers of young people are leaving rural areas; have no interest in agriculture; cannot access land; are stuck in permanent waithood; that the rural economy provides (or can provide) a wealth of opportunity; and that they can be the engine of rural transformation. It draws from existing literature and new analysis arising from several multi-country and multi-disciplinary studies, focusing on gender and other aspects of social difference. It is a major contribution to current debates and development policy about youth, agriculture and employment in rural Africa.
The present study examines rural youth perceptions of farming and their decision of whether or not to work as a farmer by paying special attention to personal career aspirations, social (peer and parental) influences, and structural (land, finance, market, and agricultural education) constraints as the zpushy and zpully forces of farming. Interviews were conducted with 59 youth in six villages of Kiambu County, Kenya. Findings revealed that non-agricultural career aspirations, such as engineering and teaching, may create the desire to migrate away from farming. While many youth held negative perceptions of farming, which were reinforced through peer and parental influence, a sub-set of youth expressed a passion for farming and considered farming an attractive career path. However, the existence of structural barriers and the difficulties in overcoming them, especially access to land, limited their participation in farming.
Sub-Saharan Africa has a long history of internal and international migratory movements. Migration patterns and dynamics from, to and between rural areas are profoundly differentiated across regions, and flows have considerably evolved over time. Yet, more recently, rural migration takes place in the unique situation of a major rural and urban demographic increase, which results in critical socio-economic and environmental challenges. In this context, intertwined migration drivers emerge and call for a better understanding of on-going dynamics. This working paper draws on a combination of literature review and data analysis, building on the results of the Atlas "Rural Africa in motion. Dynamics and drivers of migration South of the Sahara". This mixed approach is used to propose a conceptual framework based on past, current and future drivers of migration, then to examine observed patterns of rural migration and finally to discuss drivers’ characteristics and dynamics from case studies and existing datasets.
The decision of whether to migrate or not is one of several important decisions made by young men and women throughout the developing world. This paper uses panel data from five countries in Asia and Africa to examine the determinants of rural youth migration across five different countries, indirectly testing both broad and specific hypotheses related to migration. It finds that individual characteristics are more important determinants of migration than household or village characteristics. Further, it finds little evidence that credit constraints or relative deprivation are correlated with migration, holding other things constant. The difference between this result and those found in the literature regarding credit constraints implies credit constraints are geographically concentrated. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for migration influenced policy regarding youth, including the need for more and better migration data.
Distress migration is particularly acute among rural youth. Agriculture and rural development are central to the rate of rural out-migration to urban areas. The agricultural sector needs to engage youth in order to increase global food production. In doing so, agricultural transformation can balance out-migration from rural areas and thus contribute to stable growth. This document presents the conceptual framework for distress migration of rural youth. The framework focuses on the migration of rural youth (aged 15–24), who account for a large proportion of migrants and are a particularly vulnerable group. The framework comprises three sections: 1. Analysis of the main factors determining the propensity of rural youth to migrate; 2. Assessment of the likely impacts of distress migration of rural youth in terms of rural development for local areas of origin; 3. Illustration of the most promising policies and programmes to reduce distress migration of rural youth and maximize its dev elopmental benefits for the communities of origin.
Youth employment is not an entirely new topic for research and policy. Recent estimates from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2013a) suggest that high and rising unemployment rates among youth remain a key challenge to global development, especially in the developing world. This is particularly important in sub-Saharan Africa where about 85 percent of youth (defined by the ILO as all those between the ages of 15 and 24 years) are poor, 70 percent live in rural areas where agriculture is the main source for their income and subsistence, and 11 million youth are expected to enter the labor market every year for the next decade (World Bank 2014). These characteristics of youth in sub-Saharan Africa justify the centrality of the nexus between youth employment and agriculture in formulating development policy on the continent. At the same time, youth unemployment is currently one of the issues receiving attention at the top of the global development agenda.
"The series is sponsored by the Agence Francaise de Developpement and the World Bank."