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...

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Main Authors:	Botea, Ioana, Del Bono, Mitja
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2022
Subjects:	LABOR MARKET VULNERABILITY RURAL-URBAN INEQUALITY YOUTH EMPLOYMENT INFORMALITY GENDER
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099459508222237076/IDU0bffaca0a0a7f3049dc091640235cf27cac07 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37907

id	okr-10986-37907
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-379072022-08-23T05:10:41Z A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon Botea, Ioana Del Bono, Mitja LABOR MARKET VULNERABILITY RURAL-URBAN INEQUALITY YOUTH EMPLOYMENT INFORMALITY GENDER 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 2022-08-22T17:54:51Z 2022-08-22T17:54:51Z 2022 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099459508222237076/IDU0bffaca0a0a7f3049dc091640235cf27cac07 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37907 English en_US Jobs Working Paper;No.68 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Working Papers Working Papers :: Other Papers Africa Western and Central (AFW) Africa Cameroon
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	LABOR MARKET VULNERABILITY RURAL-URBAN INEQUALITY YOUTH EMPLOYMENT INFORMALITY GENDER
spellingShingle	LABOR MARKET VULNERABILITY RURAL-URBAN INEQUALITY YOUTH EMPLOYMENT INFORMALITY GENDER Botea, Ioana Del Bono, Mitja A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon
geographic_facet	Africa Western and Central (AFW) Africa Cameroon
relation	Jobs Working Paper;No.68
description	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
format	Working Paper
author	Botea, Ioana Del Bono, Mitja
author_facet	Botea, Ioana Del Bono, Mitja
author_sort	Botea, Ioana
title	A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon
title_short	A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon
title_full	A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon
title_fullStr	A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon
title_full_unstemmed	A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon
title_sort	tale of two countries : labor market profiles of youth in urban and rural cameroon
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2022
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099459508222237076/IDU0bffaca0a0a7f3049dc091640235cf27cac07 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37907
_version_	1764488102853738496

A Tale of Two Countries : Labor Market Profiles of Youth in Urban and Rural Cameroon

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