Determinants of youth labour market outcomes in Uganda

Abstract

This study investigates the determinants of labour market outcomes for youth aged 16 to 30 years in Uganda. This research specifically examined factors that predicted the youth’s outcome as one in paid employment, vulnerable employment or full unemployment using the UNHS 2016/2017 dataset obtained from Uganda Bureau of Statistics.

A multinomial logistic regression model was used to establish the predictors of the various labour market outcomes. The Likelihood ratio Chi-square and McFadden’s tests (0.1304) were conducted. Over half of youth sampled were in employment and of which, 28% were in paid employment while some 3% were contributing family workers. The unemployed youth contributed to approximately 46% of the sampled population. All predictor variables were statistically significant (p<0.001). Youth who obtained post-secondary education were more likely to be in salaried employment compared to their counterparts who never attended school (RRR 2.257, p<0.001). The youth from households that were in the fourth and highest welfare quintile were more likely to be in self-employment (RRR 2.613, p<0.001 and RRR 3.290, p<0.001) respectively. Youth in the central region were more likely to be in vulnerable employment that is; either as contributing family workers or under-employed compared to their counterparts in other regions (p<0.001). As the youth get older, they tend to seek for paid employment, as such, youth in 26-30 age category were more likely (RRR 2.475 p<0.001) to seek self-employment compared to their younger counterparts.

Government should focus on the quality of education through skilling and re-skilling programs so as to boost the quality human capital in the country especially among the youth. The Level of education of the youth, age of the youth, household welfare and region are strong predictors of youth labour market outcomes in Uganda.