Deteriorating Economic Context and Changing Patterns of Youth Employment in Urban Burkina Faso: 1980–2000

World Development Vol. 32, No. 8, pp. 1341–1354, 2004 Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0305-750X/$ - see front matter

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doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2004.03.002

Deteriorating Economic Context and Changing Patterns of Youth Employment in Urban Burkina Faso: 1980–2000

ANNE-EMMANUELE CALVES University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada and BRUNO SCHOUMAKER * Universite catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Available online Summary. — Based on unique retrospective survey data collected in Burkina Faso in 2000, this article examines the changes that urban youth employment has undergone over the last 20 years and the impact of the changing socioeconomic context on young people’s access to labor market, with particular reference to educated youth and young women. Analysis based on employment histories shows increasing unemployment and informalization of youth employment in urban Burkina Faso. The study also provides strong evidence of a rupture between education and modern sector employment among young men, and the increased instability of employment among young women. Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words — sub-Saharan Africa, Burkina Faso, youth employment, informal sector, economic recession, gender differences

1. INTRODUCTION Young people in Burkina Faso, as in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, have been strongly affected by the changing economic conditions of the 1990s. Although few recent studies have investigated urban youth employment in sub-Saharan Africa, and still fewer in Burkina Faso, such data as exist paint a somber employment picture for today’s youth. Unemployment among urban youth increased dramatically in the 1990s (Antoine, Razafindrakoto, & Roubaud, 2001). The quality of jobs has also declined, and new generations of young Africans are increasingly turning to less profitable and less stable economic activities in the informal sector of the economy (Antoine et al., 2001; Charmes, 1996; Meagher, 1995). With the drastic reduction of employment opportunities in the public sector, educated young men and women seem to

have suffered disproportionately from structural adjustment programs (SAPs) (Antoine et al., 2001; Gerard, 1997). Gender inequalities in the African urban labor markets appear to have intensified as well (Meagher, 1995; Sagrario Floro & Schaefer, 1998). This employment crisis has led to some important consequences for youth. Access to employment is a crucial step in the transition into adulthood. A shortage of employment opportunities postpones marriage and access to housing, and lengthens the period during which young people remain economically dependent on elders (Antoine et al., 2001; Gerard, 1997). In several African countries, including Burkina Faso, youth unemployment and underemployment are also strongly correlated with major

*

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Final revision accepted: 31 March 2004.

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

socioeconomic and health problems such as delinquency, prostitution, illegal abortion and HIV/AIDS infection (Calv
es, 2002; Dowsett & Aggleton, 1999). Thus, data on youth employment can inform not only employment policies and programs but also poverty alleviation, health and reproductive health initiatives directed toward youth. Such data are scarce, however, and information documenting both the current employment experience of urban African youth and the ways it has changed in reaction to the changing socioeconomic context is strongly needed. This is the purpose of the present study. Using unique retrospective data collected in Burkina Faso in 2000, the study examines the current youth employment experience and presents an analysis of its changes over time. The study also contrasts the employment experience of young men and young women and educated and uneducated youth. 2. URBAN YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICA (a) General context: the deterioration of the urban labor market Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world: it ranked 159th of 162 countries in the UNDP’s human development index (UNDP, 2001), and its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was approximately US$230 at the end of the 1990s (IMF, 2000). As in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the living conditions in Burkina Faso have been deteriorating over the last 15 years. Although ‘‘one could not really speak of a collapsing economy’’ (Diabre, 1998, p. 29) as has been the case in several neighboring countries such as C^ ote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the late 1980s and early 1990s in Burkina Faso were marked by economic stagnation. At the end of the 1980s several sectors of the economy were clearly in trouble (Chambas, Combes, Guillaumont, & Guillaumont, 1999). In response to the economic slowdown, the country embarked on a SAP in 1991. The objectives of the program were, among other things, to increase the GDP growth rate to 4% and to reduce the public deficit. Measures undertaken as part of the program included the restructuring and privatization of parastatal enterprises, reforms in the public sector and the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994.

In many African countries, the combination of the economic crisis, SAPs and the rapid increase in the urban population has profoundly affected urban labor markets. Levels of urban unemployment and the proportion of employment in the informal sector and in precarious jobs sharply increased (Antoine et al., 2001; Gaufryau & Maldonado, 2001; Lachaud, 1989). Burkina Faso was no exception. As part of the public sector reforms, wages were virtually frozen and recruitment severely cut. Restructuring and privatization in the parastatal sector also led to closures and downsizing (Diabre, 1998; Sanou, 1993). The share of the informal urban sector in the country’s economy has been on the rise, and as many as 80% of the paid jobs in Ouagadougou were outside the modern sector in the early 1990s (Sananikone, 1996). In addition to this growing ‘‘informalization’’ of the economy, the degree of differentiation and the share of precarious jobs within the informal sector are believed to have risen in Burkina Faso as in other African countries (Charmes, 1996; Meagher, 1995). Small informal enterprises in urban Burkina Faso seem to have become less profitable since the devaluation (Camilleri, 1997). Reported unemployment in Burkina Faso’s two largest urban centers is also consistently high: a survey conducted in 1992 found an unemployment rate of 25% for Ouagadougou (Lachaud, 1994), and more recent estimates also point to high unemployment rates in urban areas (INSD, 1998). As a consequence, urban poverty is on the rise: its prevalence in Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso increased from 7.8% in 1994 to 11.2% in 1998, while it decreased slightly in rural areas over the same period (Fofack, Monga, & Tuluy, 2001). Burkina Faso also witnessed a rapid increase of its urban population and the two cities grew at an average rate of 6% over the last 25 years, with more than half of the growth due to migration (Beauchemin & Schoumaker, 2003). This rapid growth of the urban population, largely fueled by young migrants moving for economic reasons (Schoumaker, Beauchemin, & Dabire, 2002), has also exacerbated competition on the urban labor market. Thus, it is in a difficult socioeconomic context that new generations of Burkinabe are entering the urban labor market today. (b) Youth and the urban employment crisis Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the economic crisis and the structural adjustment

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN BURKINA FASO

reforms implemented over the last two decades have particularly disadvantaged the new generation of jobseekers. The first obvious manifestation of the youth employment problem is the disproportionately high unemployment rates among young men and women reported in several Francophone (Antoine et al., 2001; Kouame, Kishimba, Kuepie, & Tameko, 2001) and Anglophone African cities (House, Ikiara, & McCormick, 1993; Potts, 2000). In Ouagadougou, for instance, the unemployment rate in 1992 was estimated at 43.3% among 15–29 year olds, as opposed to 6.7% among those 40 and older (Lachaud, 1994). In addition to the reduced number of available jobs, the quality of jobs to which young people have access have been affected. Although contemporary African youth is significantly better educated than previous generations, it also has access to significantly fewer stable, less profitable jobs. With the formal sector unable to generate sufficient employment to absorb this rapidly growing segment of the labor force, new generations of young Africans are increasingly turning to the informal sector for economic activity (Antoine et al., 2001; Hugon, 1993; Piche & Gingras, 1998). While earnings in the informal sector are not always lower than in the modern sector (House et al., 1993) and the informal sector should not be systematically associated with the working poor (Charmes, 2000), young people tend to be overrepresented in the lower-paying, ‘‘survival type’’ of activities (Charmes, 1994; Meagher, 1995). Youth in Burkina Faso, as elsewhere, does not constitute a homogeneous group and not all young people have been affected to the same degree. Two subgroups of the young segment of the African population seem to have particularly suffered from the urban employment crisis: educated youth and young women. (c) The distress of educated youth While in Western countries educated youth have had a clear advantage in the deteriorating labor market compared to the less-educated (Galland, 2001), the opposite picture seems to emerge in Africa. In a context where recruitment in the public sector, a traditionally preferred employment location for new graduates, has considerably slowed or completely stopped, diplomas are no longer an automatic passport to secure jobs nor a protection against unemployment. On the contrary, empirical studies conducted in Francophone Africa, including

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Burkina Faso, consistently report higher rates of unemployment among urban educated youth than among less-educated youth, especially at the secondary level (Antoine et al., 2001; Diabre, 1998; Kouame et al., 2001; Lachaud, 1994). This new social category of unemployed graduates ‘‘jeunes diplomes ch^ omeurs’’ has become the symbol of the economic crisis in African cities. Unable to find a stable job, often dependent on their less educated siblings or elders, educated youth has lost its credibility and prestige (Gerard, 1997). In urban Burkina Faso, and elsewhere in Africa, informal sector jobs are often becoming the only viable solution for educated youth (Diabre, 1998): the process of employment informalization visible among youth is most pronounced among the educated who had been protected from it so far (Antoine et al., 2001; Celestin, 1992; Gerard, 1997; Hugon, 1993). In a context where social relations (friends, relatives and parents) rather than diplomas are crucial to find a job (Kinyanjui, 2001) and where formal training is often perceived of little use for informal sector employment, many educated youth are also believed to increasingly reject the formal school system to turn to apprenticeship and on-thejob-training (Lange & Martin, 1993). (d) Female youth: another vulnerable sub-group Gender is another source of heterogeneity in youth employment opportunities in African cities. Gender discrimination in urban African labor markets is first exemplified by differentials in access to employment. At virtually all levels of education, significantly higher unemployment rates are reported for women than for men in African cities (Becker, Hamer, & Morrison, 1994; Bocquier, 1996; House et al., 1993; Sagrario Floro & Schaefer, 1998). In Ouagadougou, for instance, declared unemployment among women was reported at 28.5% as opposed to 23.2% among men, and the gender gap was wider (7%) when only 15–29 year olds were considered (Lachaud, 1997). Women’s weaker position in the urban job market is equally visible in the nature of jobs they perform. Women are far less likely to be employed in the more stable and lucrative formal sector of the economy (Becker et al., 1994) and for those engaged in wage employment, substantial gender wage gaps have been reported (Appleton, Hoddinott, & Krishnan, 1999; Fidler & Webster, 1996; Kinyanjui, 2001). Within the informal sector women are further

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disadvantaged and employment opportunities are limited: several studies point out the concentration of women in less stable, lowest income and lowest growth activities in the informal sector (Becker et al., 1994; Fidler & Webster, 1996; Osirim, 1992; Sananikone, 1996). In urban Burkina Faso, although women have increasing access to some informal activities which were previously exclusively male dominated, such as tailoring, they are generally restricted to a limited range of traditional activities related to their domestic tasks such as the processing and sale of foodstuffs and hairdressing (Dijkman & Van Dijk, 1993; Sananikone, 1996). In many African cities, limited access to education, capital and transportation constitute serious barriers to women’s entry into more profitable male dominated activities (Fidler & Webster, 1996). Dijkman and Van Dijk (1993) point out that women in Ouagadougou have less experience as apprentices and more limited access to both on-the-job training and formal education, all valuable assets for entering a male dominated field. The effect of the economic recession and structural adjustment on female labor force participation in urban Africa seems to vary. Some authors show that women’s labor force participation has remained the same or that it has actually increased as more women have been forced to provide or supplement the declining family income (Celestin, 1992; Diabre, 1998; Dijkman & Van Dijk, 1993; Meagher, 1995). In need of income, women in Ouagadougou, for instance, are believed to engage increasingly in commercial activities that were previously provided free of charge, such as hairdressing (Dijkman & Van Dijk, 1993). Conversely, other studies suggest that there has been a disproportionate rise in female unemployment due to the economic crisis (Sagrario Floro & Schaefer, 1998). As for the nature and quality of jobs performed, however, authors generally agree that gender inequality in the urban labor market throughout Africa became more pronounced in the 1990s. The gender wage gap is believed to have widened, and several studies have documented the increasing ‘‘feminization’’ of the least profitable subsector of the informal economy in Africa (Meagher, 1995; Sagrario Floro & Schaefer, 1998). 3. DATA AND METHODS This paper uses data from a unique nationally-representative retrospective survey entitled

‘‘Migration Dynamics, Urban Integration and Environment Survey of Burkina Faso’’ (MDUIE survey) conducted in 2000 in Burkina Faso of 8644 individuals. 1 The analysis focuses on urban youth and only respondents living in the two largest urban centers (Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso) at the time of the survey and/or between ages 15 and 24 are considered. With populations of 710,000 and 310,000 respectively, Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso comprised two-thirds of the urban population and 10% of the country’s population in 1996 (INSD, 2000). Although the survey, as its name indicates, focuses on migration and urban integration, it is well-suited to analyze patterns of youth entry into the labor force. The data include detailed employment histories and other longitudinal socioeconomic information for both men and women aged 15–64. More specifically, for each respondent, the section of the questionnaire devoted to economic activity history collected information on all periods of schooling, apprenticeship, economic activity (paid and unpaid employment), and inactivity (unemployed, at home, retired or sick) which lasted more than three months, since the respondent’s sixth birthday. For each period of economic activity, additional information was collected including the type of activity (open question), the status in this activity (self-employed, employer, employee, apprentice, family helper), whether the respondent was paid for the work performed, and whether he or she received or gave a pay slip (‘‘fiches de salaire’’). The analysis is divided into three sections: the first examines current youth activity and contrasts it with the current employment experience of older generations, the second analyzes changes in the employment status of youth and in the type and sector of first paid employment over time, and the third investigates transition into and out of first paid job. In each section, special attention is devoted to gender and educational differentials. To document how the employment experience of urban youth has changed over the last two decades in Burkina Faso, we compare the experience of contemporary urban youth, those aged 15–24 years old at the time of the survey, with the experience of older cohorts at the same age. Because data collected among older cohorts are more sensitive to misreporting and omission, we excluded respondents born during 1936–54 from the analysis. For each cohort, we restricted our sample to male and female

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN BURKINA FASO

respondents who were living in urban areas and were between the ages of 15 and 24. Respondents from the 1965–74 birth cohort were censored in 1990, and the 1955–64 cohort was observed until 1980, thereby simulating three surveys conducted among urban youth aged 15–24 at three different points in time. Since the survey was conducted nationally and includes full migration histories, we are able to account for urban to rural migration in our analyses. In other words, respondents who used to live in urban areas between the ages of 15 and 24 (in 1980 and 1990) and subsequently left for rural areas were included in the sample. International migrants who had not returned to Burkina Faso, on the other hand, could evidently not be interviewed and were therefore not included in the sample. We believe, however, that our analysis of the employment experience of urban youth over the last 20 years is unlikely to be biased by this situation. First, international migrants probably represent a very small proportion of the people aged 15–24 who were living in urban areas in 1980 and 1990. In fact, even though migration to C^ ote d’Ivoire and Ghana has always played a central role in the development of Burkinabe economy (Cordell, Gregory, & Piche, 1989), the international migrant population largely consists of young rural men. Moreover, most international migrants tend to return to Burkina Faso within a few years. Given that international migrants represent only a small proportion of the sample, their behavior, even if different from those of the nonmigrants, should not significantly bias the results. Second, recent evidence suggest that migration flows between Burkina Faso and C^ ote d’Ivoire, the prime destination of Burkinabe migrants, have not been significantly affected by the economic crisis and accompanying discriminatory measures against migrants in C^ ote d’Ivoire (Blion, 1995). Thus, any cohort differential in urban employment over the last 20 years is unlikely to be caused by changing patterns of international migration. To investigate the timing of transitions, statistical analysis was performed using the KaplanMeier method. 4. RESULTS Table 1 presents selected socioeconomic characteristics of respondents. The sample used in the first part of the analysis is composed of men and women who were living in Ouaga-

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dougou or Bobo Dioulasso at the time of the survey while the second sample includes individuals who were urban dwellers between the ages of 15–24 years old. The first sample (3,001 individuals) is 53% female and 47% male, and the majority of respondents (73%) were living in the capital city of Ouagadougou at the time of the survey. Reflecting the current sociodemographic situation of Burkinabe cities, Table 1 shows that the sample is young (81% of respondents are less than 35 years old) and rather educated (the majority of respondents interviewed had attended modern schools and had at least primary education). Unsurprisingly considering the role of internal migration in the urbanization process of Burkina Faso, a substantial proportion of respondents (42%) grew up outside Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso. Overall, the second sample of 2,477 men and women does not differ significantly from the first one. Due to its selection criteria, however, members from the youngest cohort (1975–84) and respondents who grew up in urban areas are slightly more numerous. (a) Current youth employment status To examine current youth labor force participation, Table 2 presents employment status (in school, apprentice, in professional training, unemployed, at home or performing paid or unpaid work) at the time of the survey by birth cohort and sex. Table 2 shows that the majority of young men from the 1975–84 generation are either students (40%) or apprentices (11%) and that 45% are already involved in unpaid or paid work. Burkinabe women are less likely to be in school than men, and only 27% of women from the youngest birth cohort are attending school or apprenticing, with the majority either working (46%) or taking care of their homes (26%). Almost all young people 25 years of age and older have joined the labor market or are taking care of the home, and only 3% of young men from the 1965–74 birth cohort and 1% of their female counterparts are still students or apprentices. Declared unemployment is low overall among both men and women for all generations with the highest percentage among males born during 1965–74 (6%). Unemployment was not the main focus of the survey and was estimated simply based on spontaneous declarations made by survey respondents. Since efforts were made to obtain complete activity histories and to record all activities of respondents

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT Table 1. Socio-demographic characteristics of the samples

Variables

Individuals in urban areas at the time of the survey

Individuals in urban areas when aged 15–24

N (unweighted)

% (weighted)

N (unweighted)

% (weighted)

Gender Men Women

1,454 1,547

47.3 52.7

1,172 1,305

47.5 52.5

Place of residence Ouagadougou Bobo Dioulasso

2,431 570

72.8 27.2

1,944 533

71.4 28.6

Birth cohort 1975–84 1965–74 1955–64

1,213 1,086 702

51.7 29.1 19.2

1,213 818 446

57.2 27.2 15.6

Educational attainment None/Koranic school Primary Secondary or more

1,161 763 1,077

37.1 26.0 36.9

865 670 942

35.0 26.2 38.8

Place of residence at age 6 Ouagadougou/Bobo Rest of the country Other country

1,326 1,327 348

46.8 41.8 11.4

1,295 939 243

51.2 37.9 10.9

Total

3,001

100

2,477

100

Source: Migration Dynamics, Urban Integration and Environment Survey of Burkina Faso (MDUIE), 2000. Table 2. Male and female employment status at the time of the survey, by birth cohort, weighted sample Men

Women

Birth cohort

Employment status Working Paid work Unpaid work Unpaid apprentice Student Unemployed At home Total N ¼ 3; 001 Estimated unemployment (% of nonstudents out of the paid labor force) N ¼ 2; 596

Birth cohort

1975–84 (15–24)

1965–74 (25–34)

1955–64 (35–44)

1975–84 (15–24)

1965–74 (25–34)

1955–64 (35–44)

45.2 35.7 9.5 11.4 40.2 2.5 0.7 100% 561

85.7 81.5 4.2 4.1 3.5 5.6 1.0 100% 541

97.7 95.1 2.6 0.5 0.2 1.6 0.0 100% 352

45.6 34.2 11.4 2.3 24.5 1.1 26.5 100% 652

73.5 69.3 4.2 2.0 1.5 1.3 21.6 100% 545

81.3 77.6 3.7 0.3 0.3 1.0 17.0 100% 350

40.2

15.4

4.7

54.7

29.5

22.1

342

518

351

499

537

349

Source: Migration Dynamics, Urban Integration and Environment Survey of Burkina Faso (MDUIE), 2000.

including unpaid activities, the unemployment category actually refers to an absence of activ-

ity. While declared unemployment among young people is low, Table 2 shows that a sig-

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN BURKINA FASO

nificant proportion of youth who are out of school are actually performing unpaid work (9.5% of young men, 11.4% of young women), essentially as family workers, or working as unpaid apprentices (11.4% of young men and 2.3% of young women). In fact, the proportion of young men and women outside the paid labor force is very high among those who are not in school. Up to 40% of out-of-school men from the youngest generation, and 15% of those born during 1965–74 are out of the paid labor force. Fifty-five percent of younger women and 30% of those from the 1965–74 generation are either unemployed or employed without pay. Thus, a very large number of young people are outside the paid labor force in urban Burkina Faso today. Although some of these young women may not be looking for a job (resulting in an overestimate of female unemployment), estimated unemployment remains higher among young women than young men. (b) Changes in the employment status of men and women To estimate how youth labor force participation has evolved, Table 3 compares the employment status of men and women from the three cohorts when they were 15–24 years old (in 2000, 1990 and 1980). As seen in Table 3, youth aged 15–24 are significantly less likely to be working for pay in 2000 than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Reflecting the general rise in school enrollment that has taken place in Burkina Faso over the last decades, Table 3 shows that young people are significantly more likely to be in school in 2000 than they were in 1990 or 1980. In fact, 40% of males and 24% of females from the youngest generation were in school between the ages of 15 and 24, compared to only 19% of men and 15% of women from the oldest generation. Despite this improvement in schooling, the gender gap remains and young men are still twice as likely to be in school as their female counterparts. A gender gap is also visible in less formal types of training. Confirming previous studies (Dijkman & Van Dijk, 1993), our data show that, overall, young women in Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso have less access to apprenticeship than young men, and are more likely to be at home. Although only unpaid apprenticeship is considered here, 2 Table 3 does not show any evidence of an increase in apprenticeship over the last 20 years. Finally, the percentage of

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young men and women who are not in school but are outside the paid labor force in 2000 is higher than it was in 1980 (around 10 percentage points), suggesting a sharp increase in the unemployment rate among urban youth in Burkina Faso over the last two decades. (c) Timing and type of first paid job The other two dimensions of youth employment experience we looked at pertain to the changes in the timing and sector of first paid employment. Table 3 shows the percentage of men and women in each birth cohort who had a job at the exact ages of 15, 20 and 25, based on Kaplan-Meier estimates. Sector of activity for the first paid job is also presented. While there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes the informal sector in urban Africa, there is agreement that the informal economy mainly operates outside the sphere of government regulation (Dijkman & Van Dijk, 1993; Osirim, 1992). Self-employed workers or employees in the informal sector are generally not registered, nor are small-scale informal enterprises. Thus, for practical purposes, we treat public sector employees as well as all those receiving a pay slip as workers in the formal, or modern sector. Employers providing pay slips to their staff are also included in this sector. The formal sector is divided into public and private spheres of activity and activities in the informal sector are classified into five categories: agricultural, craft, petty trade of food, other petty trade and services. Table 3 shows that access to first paid employment is currently significantly delayed among men. While 65% of men from the oldest cohort already had a job at age 20, only 38% of the youngest men were employed at the same age. The median age at first paid job increased from 18.5 to 22. Among women, the trends are similar but less pronounced and not statistically significant. Changes in the type of first employment are even more striking. Table 3 confirms that the formal sector, its public component in particular, is no longer a significant first employment location for urban youth. In fact, while almost a quarter of urban young men from older generations found their first paid employment in the formal sector, only 15% of men from the 1965–74 cohort and 8% of those from the 1975–84 cohort did. Young urban men are clearly more likely to start working in the informal sector today than they were in the past. They are also more likely than

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Table 3. Employment status, timing and sector of activity for first paid job of men and women aged 15–24, by birth cohort, weighted sample Men

Women

Birth cohort

Birth cohort

1975–84

1965–74

1955–64

1975–84

1965–74

1955–64

Employment status Working Paid work Unpaid work Unpaid apprenticeship Student Unemployed At home N ¼ 2; 477

45.2 35.7 9.5 11.4 40.3 2.5 0.7 561

52.6 39.3 12.7 9.8 33.3 4.1 0.9 404

65.0 56.4 8.0 11.5 18.6 5.6 0.0 207

45.6 34.2 11.4 2.3 24.5 1.1 26.5 652

56.8 43.7 11.3 03.5 18.4 1.1 22.1 414

55.3 45.1 8.6 2.0 15.1 0.7 28.5 239

Estimated unemployment N ¼ 1; 833 (non-students)

40.2 342

41.1 291

30.7 163

54.7 499

46.5 334

46.8 204

13.7 38.2 71.3

11.7 38.7 77.3

13.5 64.6 78.8

18.4 44.4 68.0

18.8 50.0 67.0

13.3 54.4 71.2

22.0

18.5

21.1

19.8

207

652

20.0 n.s. 414

239

23.2 13.4 9.8 76.8 11.9 8.5 8.0 8.5 39.9 114

3.7 0.8 2.9 96.3 2.0 4.0 52.6 14.3 23.4 307

3.9 0.5 3.4 96.1 5.4 8.0 54.8 13.6 14.3 197

7.5 1.8 5.7 92.5 5.5 13.4 61.6 8.0 4.0 112

% of respondents who had a job at Age 15 Age 20 Age 25 Median age at first paid job Cox test for significancea N ¼ 2; 477

561

21.5 *** 404

Sector of activity of first paid job Formal sector Public Private Informal sector Agriculture Craft Petty trade-food Petty trade-other Services N ¼ 1; 145

8.3 3.3 5.0 91.7 7.1 15.2 11.0 26.1 32.3 215

15.4 7.9 7.5 84.6 9.9 16.5 5.3 26.7 26.2 200

Source: Migration Dynamics, Urban Integration and Environment Survey of Burkina Faso (MDUIE), 2000. a Testing for equality of survival curves (cohort 1975–84 compared to cohort 1955–64), two-tailed.


Significant at 0.01 level.

before to perform these informal activities on the street rather than in a shop (data not shown). For instance, while the proportion of young men involved in craft activities such as bricklaying, tailoring, shoemaking or woodworking has remained around the same, more young men are involved in petty trade of nonfood items (26% among the 1975–84 cohort as compared to only 8% among the 1955–64 group). Activities in informal services, such as repairing bikes or cars, have also become more popular in the last decade (32% among the

1975–84 cohort compared to 26% among the 1965–74 group). Similar trends of employment informalization are also visible among women. The formal sector has also become less of an employment option for them over time, although its role has always been much less important than it has been for men. While only 4% of employed young women from the 1975–84 cohort found their first job in the formal sector, almost 8% of women from the 1955–64 cohort were first employed there. First employment in the for-

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN BURKINA FASO

mal sector has been replaced by employment in the informal sector for women as it has for men. Confirming previous studies in Burkina Faso and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa (Becker et al., 1994; Lachaud, 1997; Sananikone, 1996), data show that overall, Burkinabe women are overrepresented in the informal sphere of the economy compared to their male counterparts. As seen in Table 3, the majority of young women start working in the informal sector selling food items (peanuts, fruits, vegetables and spices or processed food such as cakes, doughnuts or millet beer). Petty trade of nonfood items is also common, spanning a wide range of products, from small items typically sold in kiosks (cigarettes, gum, pens) to clothes, wood, soap and beauty products. While working in the agricultural sector or being involved in craft activities (mostly sewing, knitting or crocheting) is less common, service jobs, such as domestic servant or hairdresser, are attracting more young women than in the past (23% among the youngest cohort as compared to 14% among the 1965–74 cohort and only 4% among the oldest group). This increasing share of youth activities, especially females’, within the services subsector of the informal economy is in line with scattered evi-

1349

dence reported in African countries (Charmes, 1996; Sananikone, 1996). (d) Educational status and transition into and out of first paid job We examined how educational status influences both the timing and type of first job young adults have had access to over time, and how the transition from school to first employment has changed across cohorts of educated youth. Table 4 compares the median age at first paid job among uneducated and educated young men and women for all three cohorts. For educated youth, the median duration of schooling and the median duration between end of schooling and first paid job are also presented. As seen in Table 4, for both men and women, uneducated youth are entering the labor force today at about the same age as they used to and there is no statistically significant generational difference. Patterns of access to first employment among youth who attended school, on the other hand, paint a different picture: the youngest cohort of educated men are clearly entering the labor force at a later age than they used to. Educated men from the 1975–84

Table 4. Transition to first paid job among educated men and women aged 15–24, by birth cohort, weighted sample

a

Men

Women

Cohort

Cohort

1975–84

1965–74

1955–64

1975–84

1965–74

1955–64

Median age at first paid job among uneducated Cox test for significancea N ¼ 865

18.3

19.7

17.3

17.9

18.3

18.6

109

n.s. 125

84

215

n.s. 198

134

Median age at first paid job among educated Cox test for significancea N ¼ 1; 612

23.0

22.0

19.7

22.4

23.4

22.1

452

*** 279

123

437

n.s. 216

105

Median duration of schooling Cox test for significanceb N ¼ 1; 612

11.7

Median duration between end of schooling and first paid job Cox test for significanceb N ¼ 1; 015

9.3

9.6

452

12.7 *** 279

10.2

437

8.9 n.s. 216

123

5.6

4.7

3.2

5.3

7.2

5.7

253

n.s. 172

83

291

n.s. 146

70

Testing for equality of survival curves (cohort 1975–84 compared to cohort 1955–64), two-tailed. Testing for equality of survival curves (cohort 1975–84 compared to cohort 1955–64), one-tailed.
Significant at 0.10 level;

significant at 0.05 level;


significant at 0.01 level. b

105

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

cohort began their first job, on average, at 23 years of age, more than three years later than educated men from the 1955–64 cohort. Thus, the overall delay in first paid employment among young men shown in Table 3 is the result of both the growing proportion of educated young men and the increasing age at first paid job among these educated young men. No significant postponement is visible among women. Is the postponement of first employment among educated men simply due to the lengthening of schooling or does it reflect increased difficulties on the labor market after leaving school? Table 4 suggests that both factors are at play. The median time spent in school by men increased significantly from 9.3 to 11.7 years across cohorts. Although the trend is not statistically significant due to the small number of cases, the median duration between end of schooling and first paid job also clearly increased: from 3.2 years for the oldest cohort to 5.6 years for the youngest. Among women, no significant changes in the transition from schooling to first employment are observed. The average duration spent in school has remained about the same over time (approximately nine years), as has the time spent between the end of schooling and the first paid job. Table 4 illustrates clear gender differences, however. Women are not only less likely to attend school than their male counterparts, but they also stay in school for a shorter period of time. With the exception of the youngest cohort, educated men also found jobs more rapidly than educated women. In order to verify whether educated youth have been forced to turn to informal sector economic activities instead of the modern sector jobs to which they have traditionally had access, we compare how the sector of activity of first paid jobs has evolved over time by education level. Figure 1 shows the proportion of first paid jobs in the informal sector by birth cohort and level of education for young men and women. As seen in Figure 1, few changes are noticeable with respect to the sector of activity of the first paid job held by uneducated youth. Overall, the vast majority of young men (approximately 90%) and almost all of young women with no formal education were first employed in the informal sector with little or no change across cohorts. On the other hand, striking changes have taken place among the educated. While 56% of men and 74% of women from the oldest generation had their

first job in the informal sector, this percentage jumped to 91% of men and 94% of women for the youngest cohort. These results provide strong evidence both of the rupture between formal education and access to modern sector employment, and the increasing informalization of educated youth’s employment suggested in the literature (Antoine et al., 2001; Diabre, 1998; Gerard, 1997). Finally, to further investigate changes in the stability of youth employment and the differentials by education we considered the duration of first uninterrupted employment period. Table 5 shows the percentages of men and women who were still employed three and six years after entry into first paid job, by cohort and level of education. As seen in Table 5, no significant change has taken place in the duration of first employment among young men. Time spent by young women in first employment, on the other hand, has dropped significantly over time. Overall, while 88% of young women from the oldest cohort and 84% of those from the 1965–74 cohort were still employed six years after entry into first employment, only 69% were still employed among the youngest cohort. This trend toward earlier interruption of first employment by young women today is observed among both educated and uneducated women although it is statistically significant only in the latter group. This result provides some support to the idea that women’s economic activities have been particularly hurt by the deteriorating labor market conditions (Osirim, 1992). As pointed out by Ouedraogo and Lent (1993), some informal service activities, such as hairdressing, are particularly vulnerable to economic changes and have become less profitable. Young women from the youngest cohort are overrepresented in these activities. 5. CONCLUSIONS Several important results emerge from the present study. First, our data document a sharp increase in the unemployment rate among urban youth in Burkina Faso over the last two decades. In 2000, up to 40% of out-of-school young men and 55% of their female counterparts were out of the paid labor force. The nature of youth employment has also changed significantly, and the share of the informal sector in youth employment in Burkinabe cities has considerably increased over time, especially

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN BURKINA FASO

1351

Men

% employed in the informal sector

100

90

80

Educated Uneducated All

70

60

50 1955-64

1965-74

1975-84

Birth Cohort

Women

% employed in the informal sector

100

90

80

Educated Uneducated All

70

60

50 1955-64

1965-74

1975-84

Birth Cohort

Figure 1. Percentage of first job obtained by men and women in the informal sector by cohort.

among educated youth. The study provides strong evidence, in Burkina Faso, of the rupture between formal education and access to modern sector and the informalization of youth employment that has been documented in other African cities (Antoine et al., 2001). In addition, the study demonstrates that Burkinabe urban youth, especially young women, tend to be more involved in the service subsector of the informal economy, which is believed to include less profitable and more vulnerable jobs. While these results update and, provide support for, past quantitative and qualitative findings on youth employment elsewhere in urban Africa, our analyses of data from Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso also offer unique insights on the gender and educational

dynamics underlying unemployment and employment informalization processes among urban African youth. Indeed, distinctions according to gender and educational status become crucial when examining changing patterns of urban youth employment. Our results show that the increase in age at first paid employment among young men mainly reflects significant changes that occurred among the growing educated subgroup. Educated young men are in fact more likely to be out of the paid labor force than they were two decades ago both because they tend to spend more time in school and because they face greater difficulties finding a job once leaving school. Once they find a job, however, urban young men tend to keep it as long as they did 10 or 20 years ago;

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Table 5. Percentage of men and women aged 15–24 still employed for pay, by birth cohort and educational level (Kaplan-Meier estimates), weighted sample

% of respondents still in paid work 3 and 6 years after first entry into employment All respondents 3 years 6 years Cox test for equality of survival curvesa N ¼ 1; 148 Educated 3 years 6 years Cox test for equality of survival curvesa N ¼ 551 Uneducated 3 years 6 years Cox test for equality of survival curvesa N ¼ 597

Men

Women

Cohort

Cohort

1975–84

1965–74

1955–64

1975–84

1965–74

1955–64

94.0 84.5

88.7 77.4 n.s.

90.2 77.2

90.9 69.2 ***

95.8 84.3

96.1 88.3

215

201

115

307

198

112

94.6 82.7

83.9 64.8 n.s.

88.0 82.6

89.4 65.2

92.5 78.6 n.s.

87.8 82.3

72

88

54

137

126

74

92.8 87.4

94.8 89.1 n.s.

91.8 75.2

92.6 73.8

97.7 87.3 **

99.0 90.1

143

113

61

170

72

38

Source: see Table 1. a Testing for equality of survival curves (cohort 1975–84 compared to cohort 1955–64), two-tailed.
Significant at 0.10 level;

significant at 0.05 level;


significant at 0.01 level.

although there is a clear trend toward informalization of young men employment, there is no evidence of a decrease in the duration of first paid employment among men. Among women, on the contrary, increased unemployment seems to reflect increased instability of first paid employment. Young women enter the labor market at the same age as they did in the past but they encounter job loss earlier. The increasing instability found in female employment is consistent with results reported elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, and is likely the consequence of young women’s involvement in informal services activities which are presumably be more vulnerable to economic changes. The above results call for further research on Burkinabe youth employment in the changing socioeconomic context. While the present research has documented the increasing informalization of youth employment over the last 20 years, information to further categorize jobs held by youth within the informal sector would be useful. How do the informal services jobs

where youth tend to congregate compare with other informal jobs with respect to hours worked and income generated? What are the most successful employment strategies followed by youth within the informal economy? Is a new generation of better educated and wealthier urban entrepreneurs emerging in the informal sector? Although longitudinal information on average salaries and wages is difficult to collect and not generally reliable, the current incomes of young men and women by subcategories of jobs would help identify the most and least vulnerable subcategories of young workers. The gender differential unveiled by the analysis needs also to be examined more closely. Additional data on motivations and factors underlying job loss among young women are especially needed. While further research is required, several implications can already be drawn from the study results. Two aspects of our findings are of particular relevance to policy and program initiatives promoting youth employment in

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN BURKINA FASO

Burkina Faso. First, the rupture between formal education and access to modern sector employment and the fact that the informal urban sector is increasingly providing employment to school-leavers emphasize the need to provide vocational and technical training to urban youth. Beyond what they have learned during their basic education, youth would increasingly benefit from practical knowledge and skills directed at informal sector jobs, such as technical, management, and/or marketing skills. Apart from traditional apprenticeship which, as the study indicates, has not attracted more youth over the last 20 years, training opportunities for young people while they are still in school will help recreate the link between education and employment. It will also help meet the labor market demand for creative and dynamic informal sector operators. More generally, given the central role played by the informal urban sector in providing jobs to both

1353

educated and uneducated youth, public and private initiatives to combat youth unemployment and youth poverty have to encourage informal, small-scale economic activities. Second, the greater instability of women’s first employment compared to men’s as well as the remaining gender gap in formal education and apprenticeship opportunities documented in the study highlights the need to further promote gender equality in the areas of education and employment. Burkinabe women are obviously still facing important educational and occupational constraints that policy interventions and programs need to address. Initiatives such as the provision of scholarships for encouraging female school enrolment, dvocational and technical training for young women, and financial loans to support female entrepreneurship in the informal sector would help promote equal access to urban employment among Burkinabe youth.

NOTES 1. This survey was part of a larger research project initiated by the Demography Department at the University of Montreal in collaboration with the Unite d’enseignement et de recherche en demographie (UERD) at the University of Ouagadougou and the Centre de recherche sur la population et le developpe-

ment (CERPOD) in Bamako. For more details on the survey see Poirier, Piche, Le Jeune, and Dabire (2001). 2. Paid apprenticeship was not distinguished from paid work during data collection.

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