Who Opens the Door? Rethinking Youth Employment in Africa.
- Dr. Obaa Akua Konadu
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
Creating youth employment is not a single intervention; it is a coordinated system. Doors open not because one actor turns a key, but because all actors align and pull in the same direction.
Africa has the world’s youngest population, with nearly 60% under age 25. Yet the doors to
decent and meaningful work for this demographic remain narrow. Reflecting on the metaphor, ‘door’, the door is only useful as the frame that allows for its optimal function. The frame needs to be stable, firm, and secure. However, frameworks supporting decent work in Africa remain quite strained, whether due to structural limitations such as fragmented policies, education systems, or development models.
Africa’s commitment to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or the Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want cannot meaningfully advance when the majority of the continent’s population is structurally locked out of decent work opportunities. Thus, the question ‘who opens the door?’ is not merely technical but one that is political and invites the interrogation: which doors, for whom, who decides what counts as a door, and what futures we design for when we talk about opening doors. In examining these metaphors of ‘doors’ and ‘frames’, it is also important to consider how policies, the private sector, society, and educational structures open doors for many or reinforce narrow pathways that only a few can pass through.
The left behind
A consistent pattern is evident across many African countries: youth unemployment is not only a labour-market challenge but also a fundamentally unequal issue. Inequality stems from and is shaped by, among others, geography, gender, employment status, employment type, level of education, and (dis)ability. Young people in rural areas often have limited access to digital infrastructure and higher education, and are often reliant on low-productivity agriculture. Similarly, low-income urban youth, despite their proximity to opportunities, often lack the social networks needed to access them. Also, migrant youth, particularly those from rural areas in cities, often navigate multiple layers of precarity, shaped by mobility, social exclusion, and informal work.
Young women carry a disproportionate burden of unpaid care while navigating restrictive gender norms, which continue to funnel them into lower-paying work, typically in the informal economy. Young people not in education, employment, or training remain marginalised by credential-dependent pathways into formal employment. Discriminatory hiring practices and systemic design failures exclude youth with disabilities from the labour market. These realities demonstrate that youth unemployment is not only a labour-market issue but also reflects deeper structural inequalities that are geographic, gendered, generational, and institutional.
Structural barriers: Rowing against the tide?
Several barriers consistently hamper young Africans from entering and thriving in the workforce. A significant structural barrier is the fragmentation of policies. Policies on youth employment, education, agriculture, and digitalisation are often designed and operate in silos, with limited coordination. Take, for example, the Planting for Food and Jobs programme, implemented by Ghana’s previous administration, which focused on agricultural programmes designed to improve farmer productivity, with limited linkages to youth employment.
Similarly, the Youth in Agriculture Programme was designed to motivate young people to take up “farming as a lifetime vocation”. These programmes, while relevant and well-intentioned, did not provide structured pathways for young people, such as digital advisory services or incentives for agribusinesses to hire and train them. And so, while these government-led initiatives are relevant, their connections to the digital innovation ecosystem and to agriculture and industry remain tenuous.
When policies operate in silos, youth bear the cost of navigating fragmented systems.
Coordinated, multisectoral planning (in which education, agriculture, digital, and employment strategies reinforce one another) is essential to opening doors to decent work for young people.
At the private sector (organisational level), gerontocratic and gendered power dynamics are relevant in understanding who controls access to jobs. Here, two dynamics are obvious: a) the ‘experience trap’ which locks out first-time job seekers and privileges older candidates and b) gendered control over women’s reproductive rights.
The ‘experience trap’ systematically locks out first-time job seekers, leaving them in a loop and leading them to wonder how employers expect them to gain experience if no one is willing to hire a first-timer. Such hiring practices invariably communicate, ‘we are looking for older, experienced workers’.
Regarding gendered hiring procedures, there was the infamous case of two young Ghanaian women lawyers who were suspended after getting pregnant during their pupillage. The law firm informed the women to return only after birth. However, for women, this suspension would further delay their licences, as they would remain idle until their return. Despite the women’s opposition and a medical confirmation of their fitness to continue working, the law firm defended its decision.
Therefore, when hiring systems demand experience that young people have no way to gain, or when young women are asked to leave parts of themselves at the door, opportunity becomes a privilege, rather than a right.
Credential inflation further narrows entry points for young people. Credential inflation is a labour-market dynamic in which the minimum educational requirements for entry-level jobs rise faster than the actual skills needed to perform those jobs. Employers increasingly demand higher qualifications—not because the work has become more complex, but because degrees serve as a sorting mechanism in a crowded job market. In a job advertisement for a Front Desk Officer for an engineering and management consulting firm in Accra, some of the requirements include a HND/ Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration or related fields, 2-4 years of proven experience in similar roles in similar professional working environments, and proficiency in the Microsoft Office suite. These requirements raise the bar beyond what the role's core tasks objectively require. The implications are that
youth with adequate skills but without formal credentials are screened out
young people invest in more schooling, hoping to “stand out,” yet still face unemployment or underemployment because the underlying economy is not generating enough skilled jobs.
Entrepreneurship: More than a buzzword
In response to high unemployment and/or underemployment rates, entrepreneurship has been touted as a useful pathway for youth to earn a living. However, entrepreneurship has become a ‘default prescription’ due to the attractive and empowering undertones in which this recommendation is couched. While entrepreneurship is rewarding and has significant potential to reduce employment vulnerabilities among young people, it cannot be a shortcut or a substitute for addressing deeper structural barriers. Making entrepreneurship a default prescription places the responsibility on youth to circumvent difficult structural barriers to make a living. It is unsurprising, then, that many youth-led enterprises remain low-margin and survivalist due to weak ecosystems and structural limitations, such as limited access to finance and complex business registration procedures.
Despite these limitations, market-oriented entrepreneurship can yield significant returns for youth and the economy as a whole. Young entrepreneurs need to identify real local demand and build and plug their enterprises along existing value chains. Such strategies can ensure that these enterprises address real societal needs and, therefore, that there is a market to serve. Similarly, building enterprises within existing value chains allows them to leverage existing resources without having to build from scratch. This is not to discourage the building of new value chains – that is equally plausible.
Entrepreneurship thrives in ecosystems, not isolation. Therefore, critical structural support, such as investment in vital infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and the easing of business registration processes, is needed to reduce structural barriers that hinder the formation and sustenance of such enterprises.
So, who opens the door?
Youth employment does not sit neatly within any single ministry, institution, or stakeholder group. No single actor can address a structural challenge that is economic, social, political, and technological simultaneously. “Shared responsibility” means each actor holds a piece of the solution, and youth outcomes improve only when these pieces align. Governments need to create an enabling environment for job creation, because even the best youth employment programmes can fail when the broader economic system is weak. The private sector provides a critical avenue for businesses to create sustainable and decent jobs.
As firms grow and thrive, more job opportunities are created, thereby increasing youth employment. The education system is often criticised for failing to produce job-ready students. If education and training remain misaligned with the job market's needs, even the most motivated youth struggle because their training shapes what they can offer and how confidently they can contribute. Development partners have been critical in supporting evidence-based policies, scaling effective interventions across countries, and funding the incubation and acceleration of youth-led initiatives.
However, they cannot replace national systems. Yet they remain critical partners in accelerating country-level policies that expand youth opportunities to earn a living. Lastly, the youth. Young people have demonstrated that they are not merely passive recipients —they are innovators, problem-solvers, and political actors. Their silence only leads to greater exclusion and more barriers.
Creating youth employment is not a single intervention—it is a coordinated system. Doors open not because one actor turns a key, but because all actors align and pull in the same direction.
DISCLAIMER: This blog is based on Dr Obaa A. Konadu-Osei’s speaker notes for the MMEG Talks. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Governance and Development Advisory or any institution with which the author is affiliated.
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