IFAD RESEARCH SERIES 53 Youth access to land, migration and employment opportunities: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa Papers of the 2019 Rural Development Report

F. Kwame, Yeboah T.S. Jayne, M. Muyanga and Jordan Chamberlin ()

No 301014, IFAD Research Series from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Agricultural Finance; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Environmental Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/301014/files/RS53.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:unadrs:301014

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.301014

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IFAD Research Series from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().