Does Entrepreneurship Guarantee Youth Empowerment in Nigeria? The Role of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises

Wahid Damilola Olanipekun, Yimka Samson Alalade, Bolanle Olubunmi Amusa and Timothy Ayomitunde Aderemi ()
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Wahid Damilola Olanipekun: Senior Faculty Member and Director, Collaboration, Research and Consultancy Centre, College of Management and Information Technology, American International University, West Africa. The Gambia
Yimka Samson Alalade: Department of Finance, Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Nigeria
Bolanle Olubunmi Amusa: Department of Business Administration and Management, Gateway (ICT) Polytechnic, Saapade, Ogun State, Nigeria
Timothy Ayomitunde Aderemi: Department of Economics, Accounting and Finance, Bells University of Technology, Ota, Nigeria Aderemi

Business & Management Compass, 2021, issue 4, 429-442

Abstract: The aim of this study is to examine the impact of entrepreneurship within the context of SMEs on youth empowerment in Nigeria. Providing an empirical evidence to answer the research question required the extraction of data between 1991 and 2019 from the World Development Indicators. Meanwhile, the data was subjected to various pre-tests such as unit roots and Co-integration tests before the adapted models were estimated using Fully Modified Least Squares (FMOLS) and Granger causality techniques. The summary of the major discoveries in the study were enunciated as follows; self-employment and youth unemployment had a significant negative relationship in Nigeria. In the same vein, population growth rate and youth unemployment had a significant negative relationship. However, commercial banks loans to SMEs and youth unemployment had an insignificant positive relationship in the country. By and large, self- employment generated by SMEs reduces youth unemployment significantly in Nigeria. Furthermore, a long run convergence existed among the variables of interest in one hand, a unidirectional causal relationship running from youth empowerment to SMEs financing existed in the study. Also, a unidirectional causality running from self- employment to population growth rate was discovered. Therefore, the study concludes that entrepreneurship - SMEs has the capacity to guarantee youth empowerment in Nigeria. Against this backdrop, this study recommends that the policymakers and other stakeholders in Nigeria should embrace entrepreneurship, especially SMEs as a reliable means of youth empowerment through employment generation in the country.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Youth Empowerment; SMEs; Self-employment; Youth Unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 D24 J21 L81 M20 M21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrn:journl:y:2021:i:4:p:429-442

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