A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon
Cameroon’s high employment levels mask widespread precariousness and rural-urban inequality. Labor market vulnerability-either detachment or weak attachment-is particularly acute among youth (ages 15 to 35), who are often uninterested in agricultur...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099459508222237076/IDU0bffaca0a0a7f3049dc091640235cf27cac07 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37907 |
| Summary: | Cameroon’s high employment levels
mask widespread precariousness and rural-urban inequality.
Labor market vulnerability-either detachment or weak
attachment-is particularly acute among youth (ages 15 to
35), who are often uninterested in agriculture yet unable to
access better opportunities in urban areas. Using Latent
Class Analysis (LCA), a non-parametric method that segments
a heterogeneous population into groups sharing similar
characteristics, we identify distinct profiles of youth
experiencing labor market vulnerability. The largest groups
in urban and rural areas consist of mostly men with some
education who work full time in the informal sector, either
as own-account workers or subsistence farmers. In addition,
we identify five groups as priorities for policy
intervention. First, two groups making up 9 percent of
out-of-school youth, predominantly married women, are
involuntarily inactive and present an opportunity for
improved human capital utilization. Second, a third group
(14 percent) includes women in rural areas employed as
contributing family workers, while two other groups (12
percent) comprise women facing multifold vulnerabilities
(i.e., a combination of unpaid, temporary, and part-time
work). Tailored interventions for these three groups would
most impact poverty reduction |
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