Access to Land and it’s Impact on Youth Migration and Employment Decisions analyzes how youth land access affects migration and employment decisions in rural Ethiopia. The study uses panel data from 2013-2015 and finds that: 1) Better youth land access significantly lowers the likelihood of migration and increases the likelihood of employment in agriculture. 2) Family-based land access plays a more important role in areas with less developed land rental markets. 3) Overall, lack of land access pushes youth towards non-farm employment and migration more than economic pull factors. Restrictive land policies limit the potential for land rental markets to enhance livelihoods.

1. Access to Land and it’s Impact on
Youth Migration and Employment
Decisions
Hosaena Ghebru, Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse and
Bart Minten and Fikirte Girmachew
International Food Policy Research Institute
15th International Conference on the Ethiopian Economy
Ethiopian Economics Association (EEA)
July 22, 2017
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

2. Focus: Rural Ethiopia
• In Ethiopia, land is formally owned by the
government, with formal land markets (sales)
outlawed and major land access via administrative
redistribution
• Due to it's adverse tenure security effect,
redistribution has long been abandoned
• The country now facing acute problems of land
scarcity - especially in the highlands
• Household farm sizes are dwindling; In 2011-12,
more than half of rural households cultivated less
than one hectare of land (CSA, 2012)
• Youth rely on inheritance, and/or small rental
markets to access land
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3. Research Question
• Overall, youth (aged 15-34) are likely to make
decisions based on land access, but we know little
about how land access impacts such decisions
(Except Holden and Bezu, 2014; and Kosec et al
2016)
• How does youth land access affect their migration
and employment decisions?
• What is the differential impact of land access on
youth?
– with versus without access to functioning land rental
markets?
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4. Background: Access to Land in Ethiopia
• Land formally owned by government, with formal land
markets (sales) outlawed
• Individual land users have the legal right to transfer their
land use rights to their children or other family members
• Individuals can also rent their land use rights to any person
• Several land redistributions have occurred since 1991,
usually based on household size at the time (with extra
weight placed on adult males)
• Sometimes involved land previously utilized by state farms
• In our five study regions, almost half (39 of 84 sample
woredas) experienced such a major land redistribution in
the past 26 years, though there is substantial variation in
the timing of the redistributions
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5. Years of most recent redistributions
Year Number of Woreda (districts)
2003 2
2002 1
1997 4
1996 1
1995 15
1993 5
1992 1
1991 10
1989 1
1984 1
1983 1
1981 1
1980 3
1978 2
1976 1
1969 1
1968 2
None 32
Total 84
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Source: IFPRI’s Ethiopia FtF Surveys of 2015

6. Sources of land access in Ethiopia
• Three major sources
1. Administrative land redistribution
2. Family transfer (gift/inheritance)
3. The land rental market
• Recent wave of restrictions in land use and transfer
rights
– Must not abandon land for an extended period
– Must remain a resident of the village (i.e. kebele)
– Limits on the duration of land rent
– A holder can only rent out 50% of land (e.g., Tigray,
Oromia, SNNP)
– A holder can lose his use rights if permanently employed
in non-farm activities (e.g., Tigray, Amhara)
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7. Drivers of Migration & Employment in Rural Ethiopia
• Two binding forces (push and pull) that deserve attention when it comes
to youth occupational/spatial mobility choices and the national land use
and transfer policy in the Ethiopian context.
• The fact that the land rental market in Ethiopia is supply constrained due
to market and policy distortions marginalizes youth and serves as a push
factor leading them to look elsewhere for a livelihood strategy.
• On the other hand, youth may be attracted by relatively high-return
non-agricultural activities or human capital investment.
• Migrants are predominantly `pushed' from their homes rather than
attracted by an urban `pull' of higher returns on human capital
investments (World Bank, 2010; Zeleke et al., 2008; Dorosh et al., 2012;
de Brauw, 2014; Lee and Mueller, 2016).
• Both employment diversification (via non-agricultural employment
and/or migration) and the pursuit of educational opportunities
represent potential strategies of risk diversification.
• This study, thus, aims to explore how youth land access affect their
migration and employment decisions?
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8. Data
• IFPRI’s Ethiopia FtF panel survey conducted in 2013 (round 1)
and 2015 (round 2)
• Sample includes 252 kebeles (villages) in 84 woredas (districts)
in 5 regions(Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Somalia), with
approximately 85 households per woreda
• 7,000 households in round 1 and 6,853 in round 2 (2.1 percent
household attrition over 4 years)
• We construct a cross-sectional dataset consisting of all round 1
household members aged 15-34; we then observe their spatial
location and employment decisions in 2015 (round 2)
• Round 2 dataset used to capture occupational status of the
youth
• Permits us to analyze land access as well as migration and
employment decisions made between 2013 and 2015 of all
descendants
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9. Variable Measurement: Outcomes
• Two alternative proxy variables used for capturing youths' land
access:
– The ratio of [own holding farm size (in ha)] to [# of descendants
(children) of the head and/or the spouse]
– The ratio of [# of possible plots per household, using the 0.25ha
restrictions on divisibility of plots] to [ # of descendants]
• Migration is an indicator variable equal to 1 for any youth who
was a household member in 2013 but not in 2015 for reasons of
either he/she found (looking for) job or land, zero otherwise.
• Employment outcomes (considers individual's primary
occupation):
– Agriculture
– Non-agricultural sector
– Studying
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10. Econometric Specification
• We estimate the following linear probability model:
• Where:
– i indexes individuals
– Ei are migration (during 2013–15) and employment (in 2015) outcomes
– Li is the two alternative land access proxy variables interacted with if the
individual has male descendant immediately follows in birth order
– Xi is a vector of individual-level control variables (gender, oldest male indicator,
age, marital status, child of head indicator, primary school completion
indicator, over age 18 at time of most recent land redistribution indicator, fixed
effects for exact permutation of older co-descendants, and indicator for having
more than one male co-descendant immediately below one’s self in the birth
order)
– αj are household fixed effects
• Land access is likely to be endogenous to migration and employment
decisions:
– A household’s land endowment, wealth, and income levels could influence
both migration and employment decisions and land access.
• To account for such potential endogeniety bias, we use household fixed
effects model
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11. Descriptive results
Variables Mean S.D
Dummy - Migrant 0.155 0.362
Primary occupation is in:
Agriculture 0.368 0.482
Non-agriculture 0.135 0.342
Studying 0.260 0.404
Others 0.237 0.391
age 19.30 7.868
Dummy-Male 0.504 0.500
Dummy - male descendant immediately follows in birth order 0.147 0.354
Dummy - > 1 male descendant immediately follows in birth order 0.079 0.391
Married 0.482 0.500
literate 0.536 0.499
Primary school completed 0.297 0.457
Ratio of own hold farm size to # of descendants (in hectares) 0.473 0.671
# of inheritable plot per descendants 2.127 2.767
proportion of siblings born during last redistribution 0.104 0.252
proportion of siblings age 18 during last redistribution 0.019 0.117
Head and/or spouse were born during last major redistribution 0.550 0.498
Head and/or spouse were age 18 during last major redistribution 0.220 0.415
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Source: Authors’ calculation based on IFPRI’s Ethiopia FtF Surveys of 2013 and 2015
Note : N= 9,404

12. Impact on Migration
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13. Impact on Employment: Model 1
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14. Impact on Employment: Model 2
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15. Differential impact: LRMP
High versus low land rental market activities (migration)
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16. Differential impact: LRMP
High versus low land rental market activities (employment)
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17. Conclusion
Approach:
• In Ethiopia, there are two binding forces (push and pull) that deserve
attention when it comes to youth occupational and spatial mobility
choices and the national land use and transfer policy.
• On the one hand, the fact that the land rental market in Ethiopia is
supply constrained due to market and policy distortions marginalizes
youth and serves as a push factor leading them to look elsewhere for a
livelihood strategy.
• On the other hand, youth may be attracted a relatively high-return
non-agricultural activities or human capital investment.
• Our study thus aims to explore how youth land access (both family-
based and market-based) affects their migration and employment
decisions.
• We explore this question in the context of rural Ethiopia using panel
data from the FtF panel survey collected in 2013 and 2015 from 6,853
households in 84 woredas (districts) from the five regions in Ethiopia.
• Focus on youth aged 15-34; estimate a household fixed effects model
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18. Conclusion: cont.…
 We find that better land access significantly lower the likelihood of migration to urban
areas during this period.
 Better land access is also associated with a significantly higher likelihood of
employment in agriculture and a lower likelihood of employment in the
nonagricultural sector.
 Conversely (expectedly due to the big public investment in schooling (WB 2016) – i.e.,
supply driven), decision to attend school is unaffected by of land access.
 Family-based land access plays a much more pronounced role in predicting migration
and nonagricultural-sector employment in areas with less vibrant land rental markets.
 Overall, the results reaffirm the notion that push factors dominate pull factors in
dictating occupational and migration decisions in Ethiopia and highlight youth
preferences to use migration or non-agricultural employment as a last resort after
exhausting other means of accessing land, such as temporary land rental.
 Moreover, restrictive land policy in the form of duration (less than two years) and size
(only allowing less than half of ones land holding) may limit the full potential land
rental markets may provide in enhancing the livelihood strategy choices of farmers –
and the youth in particular.
 Thus, the results from the preliminary analysis indicates, it is noteworthy for policy to
further investigate the effect of youth land access and the role of land rental markets
plays in spatial and occupational mobility decisions of the youth.
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19. Thank You!
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