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Youth In Africas Labor Market Marito H Garcia Jean Fares

Youth In Africas Labor Market Marito H Garcia Jean Fares Youth In Africas Labor Market Marito H Garcia Jean Fares Youth In Africas Labor Market Marito H Garcia Jean Fares

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Youth in Africa’s Labor Market Marito Garcia and Jean Fares, Editors D I R E C T I O N S I N D E V E LO P M E N T Human Development
Youth in Africa’s Labor Market YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page i
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Youth in Africa’s Labor Market Editors Marito Garcia Jean Fares YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page iii
© 2008 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street NW Washington, DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000 Internet: www.worldbank.org E-mail: feedback@worldbank.org All rights reserved 1 2 3 4 11 10 09 08 This volume is a product of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The bound- aries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgement on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Rights and Permissions The material in this publication is copyrighted. Copying and/or transmitting portions or all of this work without permission may be a violation of applicable law. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank encourages dissemination of its work and will normally grant permission to reproduce portions of the work promptly. For permission to photocopy or reprint any part of this work, please send a request with complete information to the Copyright Clearance Center Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA; telephone: 978-750-8400; fax: 978-750-4470; Internet: www.copyright.com. All other queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to the Office of the Publisher, The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2422; e-mail: pubrights@worldbank.org. ISBN: 978-0-8213-6884-8 eISBN: 978-0-8213-6885-5 DOI: 10.1596/978-0-8213-6884-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garcia, Marito, 1951- Youth in Africa’s labor market / Marito Garcia and Jean Fares. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Youth—Employment—Africa. 2. Youth—Africa—Social conditions. 3. Labor market— Africa. I. Farès, Jean. II. Title. HD6276.A32G37 2008 331.3′47096—dc22 2007044706 Cover painting: Paul Olaja Cover design: Naylor Design YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page iv
Foreword xvii Contributors xix Acknowledgments xxi Abbreviations xxiii Executive Summary xxv PART 1 Youth in Africa’s Labor Market: A Synthesis 1 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Chapter 1 Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 3 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Why Focus on the Transition to Work? 4 Africa’s Demographic Transition Creates a Window of Opportunity 4 The Level of Educational Attainment Has Risen— and Returns to Education Are Rising in Some Countries 7 Despite Progress, Significant Challenges Remain 8 The Policy Response 11 Notes 14 Contents v YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page v
Chapter 2 Transitions to Working Life for Africa’s Youth 15 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Poverty and Large Income Shocks Push Children into the Work Force 18 The School-to-Work Transition of Africa’s Youth Is Long and Difficult 21 Chapter 3 How Do Africa’s Young People Spend Their Time? 27 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Not Many Youth Are in the Labor Market and Employed 27 A Large Proportion of Youth Are “Inactive” 29 Many Young People Are in School 29 Time Use Varies by Income Group 32 Notes 37 Chapter 4 The Effect of Education on Income and Employment 39 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares How Does Education Affect Income? 39 How Does Education Affect Employment? 42 What Effect Does Education Have on Development? 44 What Keeps Educational Attainment Low? 44 Notes 47 Chapter 5 Working in Bad Jobs or Not Working at All 49 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares What Makes the Transition to Work Difficult for Youth? 49 Youth Are Vulnerable in the Labor Market 53 Youth Unemployment Is High 60 Notes 65 vi Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page vi
Chapter 6 The Three Pillars of Policy: Lessons from International Experience 67 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Responses from African Countries 73 Future Research to Fill Knowledge Gaps 75 Annex 6A. Methodology: Building an Indicator of the School-to-Work Transition 75 Annex 6B. Inventory of Selected Policies and Programs on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Burkina Faso 78 Government Involvement in Youth Empolyment Issuses 78 Description of Policies and Programs 79 How Well Have Interventions Performed? 82 Annex 6C. Inventory of Selected Policies and Programs on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Ethiopia 84 Government Involvement in Youth Employment Issues 84 Description of Policies and Programs 85 How Well Have Interventions Performed? 89 Annex 6D. Inventory of Selected Policies and Programs on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Tanzania 91 Government Involvement in Youth Employment Issues 91 Description of Policies and Programs 92 How Well Have Interventions Performed? 95 Annex 6E. Inventory of Selected Policies and Programs on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Uganda 97 Bibliography for Part 1 101 Contents vii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page vii
PART 2 Youth in Africa’s Labor Market: Country Case Studies 107 Lisa Dragoset, Jean Fares, Lorenzo Guarcello, Florence Kondylis, Scott Lyon, Marco Manacorda, Daniel Parent, Furio Rosati, Cristina Valdivia, and Lars Vilhuber Chapter 7 School-to-Work Transitions: Regional Overview 109 Lorenzo Guarcello, Marco Manacorda, Furio Rosati, Jean Fares, Scott Lyon, and Cristina Valdivia Aggregate Trends 110 Young People’s Time Use 115 Status of Young People in the Labor Market 120 The Transition from School to Work 131 Assessment of the Transition to Working Life 132 Annex 7A.1 141 Notes 144 References 146 Chapter 8 What Determines Labor Market Participation by Youth in Burkina Faso? 149 Daniel Parent Labor Market Indicators 150 Household Income, School Attendance, and Returns to Education 159 Notes 177 References 178 Chapter 9 Child Labor and Youth Employment in Ethiopia 181 Lorenzo Guarcello, Scott Lyon, and Furio Rosati National Context 182 Child Labor 185 Labor Market Status of Young People in Ethiopia 188 Transition to Working Life 196 viii Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page viii
Child Labor, Human Capital, and Youth Labor Market Outcomes 200 Policies and Programs for Youth Employment in Ethiopia 211 Conclusions and Policy Recommendations 217 Notes 220 References 222 Chapter 10 Youth in the Labor Market and the Transition from School to Work in Tanzania 225 Florence Kondylis and Marco Manacorda Why Is Unemployment Higher among Youth? 226 Descriptive Evidence 228 Determinants of Labor Force Status among Youth 246 Conclusions and Policy Implications 254 Notes 257 References 258 Chapter 11 How Did Universal Primary Education Affect Returns to Education and Labor Market Participation in Uganda? 263 Lisa Dragoset and Lars Vilhuber Education and Earnings in Uganda 265 The Literature on Educational Participation in Developing Countries 266 The Model 267 Results 268 Concluding Remarks 276 Notes 276 References 277 Index 281 Box 1.1 HIV/AIDS Is Projected to Reduce the Size of the Youth Cohort in Southern Africa 6 Contents ix YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page ix
Figures 1.1 Africa’s Youth Population Is Projected to Grow Faster Than That of Any Other Region in the World 5 1.2 Economic Returns to Secondary Education Are High and Rising Faster Than Educational Attainment in Uganda 8 1.3 Too Many Children Are Working in Many Sub-Saharan African Countries 9 1.4 The Level of Education among Out-of-School Youth in Africa Is Low 9 1.5 The Level of Literacy Varies Widely in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Higher-Income Countries Tending to have Higher Literary Rates 10 1.6 Most African Youth Work in the Informal Sector or Are Self-Employed 10 1.7 Less-Skilled Youth Are Most Vulnerable to Changes in the Supply of and Demand for Labor in Ethiopia 12 2.1 Child Participation in the Labor Force Is High, Particularly among Rural Males in Ethiopia 17 2.2 The Late Age of School Leaving Is Not an Indication of High Educational Attainment in Burkina Faso 23 3.1 Time Use by Income Quintile Varies across Countries 34 3.2 Time Use by Patterns of Young People Vary across Age Groups and Countries 36 4.1 Household Earnings Increase with Educational Attainment in Burkina Faso 41 4.2 More Education Does Not Always Reduce the Rate of Unemployment among Youth 43 5.1 Most Youth Perform Unpaid Family Work, Predominantly in Agriculture in Ethiopia 59 5.2 Unemployment Is Higher among Youth Than Adults in Almost All Sub-Saharan African Countries 61 5.3 Many Urban Youth Remain Unemployed for More Than a Year in Ethiopia 62 5.4 Unemployment Spells Last Much Longer in Urban Than in Rural Areas in Tanzania 63 5.5 Young Females Are More Likely Than Young Males to Be Neither Working Nor Attending School 63 7.1 Regional Unemployment Rates, 2003 112 7.2 Average Years of Schooling, by Region and Year 113 7.3 Educational Attainment of Nonstudent Youth, Sub-Saharan Africa Region 114 x Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page x
7.4 Unemployment Rate for Youth by Educational Attainment in Sub-Saharan African Countries 115 7.5 Changes in the Time Use Patterns of Young People by Age and Country 121 7.6 Unemployment Ratios for Young People Ages 15–24, by Sex, Residence, School Attendance, and Country 125 7.7 Youth versus Adult Unemployment 129 7.8 Ratio of Youth to Adult Unemployment Rates, Sub-Saharan African Countries and OECD Countries 130 7.9 Length and Timing of Transition from School to Work for Children Ever Attending School by Sex, Residence, and Country 135 7.10 School Enrollment by Age and School Attendance in Burkina Faso 136 7.11 Correlation Between Transition Duration and Selected Macroeconomic and Demographic Factors 138 7.12 The Proportion of Children Ages 8–12 Who Are Economically Active 140 7.13 Age at First Job for Children Never Attending School, by Country 140 9.1 Ethiopia’s Labor Force Tripled between 1960 and 2002 184 9.2 Gross Primary School Enrollment in Ethiopia More Than Doubled between 1995 and 2003 185 9.3 Rural Residents and Boys in Ethiopia Are More Likely to Work as Children Than Urban Residents and Girls 186 9.4 The Unemployment Ratio and Rate of Joblessness among 15- to 24-Years-Olds in Ethiopia Are About Average for Sub-Saharan Africa 190 9.5 Youth Unemployment Ratios in Ethiopia Are Much Higher in Urban Than in Rural Areas 191 9.6 Urban Workers in Ethiopia Work Many More Hours per Week Than Rural Workers 191 9.7 The Duration of Urban Unemployment in Ethiopia Is a Cause for Concern 192 9.8 Youth Have Weaker Labor Indicators Than Adults in Ethiopia, but Unemployment among Both Groups Is Low 195 9.9 The Unemployment Ratio among Ethiopian Adults of All Ages Is Higher in Urban Than in Rural Areas 196 9.10 Ethiopian Youth Begin the Transition from School to Work Later Than Youth in Other Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa 197 Contents xi YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xi
9.11 Ethiopian Children Who Start School Tend to Remain in School through Their Teens 199 9.12 Gender and Location Affect the Duration and Timing of the Transition from School to Work in Ethiopia 199 9.13 Ethiopian Children Begin Work Much Earlier Than Children in Other Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa 200 9.14 Employment Rates among Ethiopians Ages 20–24 Decrease with Education, and Unemployment Rates Increase 201 9.15 The Higher Their Level of Education, the More Likely Ethiopians Ages 20–24 Are to Work in Wage Employment 204 11.1 Income Rises with Level of Education in Uganda 265 Tables 2.1 Age of First Job and Percentage of Children Working in Selected Countries 16 2.2 Type and Sector of Employment of Child Workers by Age Group, Gender, and Urban-Rural Location in Ethiopia 19 2.3 Effect of Poverty and Household Income Shocks on Labor Force Participation of Urban Dwellers Ages 12–14 in Burkina Faso 20 2.4 Duration of the School-to-Work Transition in Selected Countries 22 2.5 Length and Timing of Transition from School to Work by Gender, Residence, and Country 24 3.1 Time Use among Male and Female Youth in Selected Countries 31 3.2 Time Use among Rural and Urban Youth in Selected Countries 33 3.3 Time Use among Teenagers and Young Adults in Selected Countries 35 4.1 Effect of Primary and Secondary Education on Wages, by Age Group, 1992 and 1999, in Uganda 42 4.2 Determinants of Schooling for Urban and Rural Youth by Gender in Tanzania 46 5.1 Determinants of Urban and Rural Youth Unemployment in Tanzania 50 xii Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xii
5.2 Determinants of Urban and Rural Youth Inactivity in Tanzania 51 5.3 Employment Response to Demographic and Economic Shocks for Females by Location and Education in Ethiopia 51 5.4 Response of Youth Employment to Demographic and Economic Shocks for Females by Level of Education and Urban-Rural Location in Ethiopia 54 5.5 Modality of Employment by Youth and Adults in Selected Countries 55 5.6 Modality of Employment of Rural and Urban Youth, in Selected Countries 57 5.7 Employment Modality by Gender, Age Group, and Urban- Rural Location in Tanzania 58 5.8 Multiple Job Holding and Underemployment by Gender, Age, and Urban-Rural Location in Burkina Faso 60 5.9 Reported Reasons for Inactivity among Male Youth in Tanzania 64 6.1 Promising Interventions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda 74 6B.1 Selected Employment-Related Programs by Category, Location, and Age Group Served in Burkina Faso 80 6B.2 Quality of Employment-Related Interventions in Burkina Faso 83 6B.3 Quality of Evaluations of Employment-Related Interventions in Burkina Faso 84 6C.1 Selected Employment-Related Programs by Category, Location, and Age of Group Served in Ethiopia 86 6C.2 Quality of Employment-Related Interventions in Ethiopia 89 6C.3 Quality of Evaluations of Employment-Related Programs in Ethiopia 90 6D.1 Selected Employment-Related Programs by Category, Location, and Age Group Served in Tanzania 93 6D.2 Quality of Employment-Related Interventions in Tanzania 95 6D.3 Quality of Evaluations of Employment-Related Programs in Tanzania 97 7.1 Time Use Patterns for Youth Ages 15–24, by Country 116 7.2 Time Use Patterns for Youth Ages 15–24, by Sex and Country 117 7.3 Time Use Patterns for Youth Ages 15–24, by Residence and Country 118 Contents xiii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xiii
7.4 Time Use Patterns for Youth, by Age Group and Country 119 7.5 Youth Unemployment, Inactivity, and Jobless Indicators, by Age Group and Country 124 7.6 Employment Characteristics for the 15–24 Year-Old Age Group, by Country 128 7.7 Youth versus Adult Employment Characteristics by Country 131 7.8 School-to-Work Transition Points by Residence and Country 133 8.1 School and Work Status of Females and Males in Burkina Faso, by Age, 1993–2003 151 8.2 Employment and Unemployment Rates among Burkinabes Not Enrolled in School, by Age and Gender, 1993–2003 152 8.3 Employment and Unemployment Rates in Burkina Faso, by Age, Gender, and Education, 1993–2003 154 8.4 Employment and Unemployment Rates in Urban and Rural Areas of Burkina Faso, 1993–2003 156 8.5 Percentage of Burkinabes Underemployed or Holding More Than One Job, 2003 158 8.6 Percentage of Burkinabes Holding More Than One Job, by Household Income Quintile, 2003 159 8.7 Household Income Shocks and Labor Force Participation in Burkina Faso, 2003 160 8.8 Changes in Household’s Economic Conditions and Labor Force Participation 163 8.9 School Enrollment Probits for Burkina Faso, 1993–2003 168 8.10 Rate of Return to Schooling in Burkina Faso, 2003 173 8.11 Instrumental Variables Estimates of Rate of Return to Schooling 175 8.12 Panel Data IV Estimates 176 9.1 Macroeconomic Indicators for Ethiopia, 1982–2001 183 9.2 Work and School Activity of Ethiopian Children, by Age, Gender, and Urban-Rural Location 187 9.3 Youth Unemployment, Inactivity, and Joblessness Indicators in Ethiopia, by Age Group, Gender, and Urban-Rural Location 189 9.4 Work Modality, Sector of Employment, and Average Weekly Hours of Employed Ethiopian Youth 193 xiv Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xiv
Contents xv 9.5 Ratio of Youth to Adult Unemployment Rates in Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries 195 9.6 School-to-Work Transition Points in Ethiopia, by Gender and Urban-Rural Location 198 9.7 Employment Status and Employment Modality of Ethiopians Not in School, by Educational Attainment and Age Group 203 9.8 Probability of Employment among Ethiopians Ages 10–24: Probit Estimates Using Regionwide Definition of Local Labor Market 206 9.9 Probability of Employment among Rural and Urban Ethiopians Ages 10–24, by Level of Education: Probit Estimates Obtained Using Indicators of Local Labor Market Separated for Rural and Urban Areas 208 10.1 Labor Force and Schooling Status in Tanzania, 2000/01 229 10.2 Nature of Employment in Tanzania, 2000/01 233 10.3 Activity and Unemployment Status in Tanzania, 2000/01 238 10.4 Reasons Why Tanzanians Are Not Looking for or Are Not Available for Work 242 10.5 Job Search Methods in Tanzania 245 10.6 Determinants of Labor Force Status and Schooling Choices of Youth in Tanzania 248 11.1 A Large Proportion of Uganda’s Labor Force Works Outside the Formal Sector 266 11.2 The Percentage of Ugandans with Some Secondary Education Rose between 1992 and 2002 270 11.3 The Free Primary Education Policy Has Freed Household Resources, Allowing Families to Keep Children in School Longer 271 11.4 The Average Educational Level of Household Heads in Uganda Rose between 1992 and 2002 272 11.5 Educational Levels Increased in Both Rural and Urban Areas 273 11.6 Employment Rose between 1992 and 1999, Particularly among Young Women 275 YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xv
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Foreword xvii About 200 million people between the ages of 12 and 24 live in Africa today, and their share of the population is rising. By 2010 youth will account for 28 percent of the population, making Sub-Saharan Africa the “youngest” region in the world. This largest-ever youth cohort means that the time has never been more urgent to invest in young people in Africa. With good policies and institutions in place, the potential to reap a divi- dend from a larger, younger work force with fewer dependents is great. This book examines the challenges African youth face in their transi- tion to work and presents a strategy for meeting these challenges. It argues that African youth start working too early and are unprepared to meet the demands of the labor market. Leaving school early—or not entering at all—limits their human capital accumulation and restricts their upward mobility, with grave implications for both individuals and national economies. Labor is the most abundant asset of poor households in Africa. Developing this asset is therefore essential to helping households move out of poverty. Strengthening the work force can also improve the investment climate, increase economic growth, and prevent instability and violence, particularly in postconflict situations, where large numbers of unemployed youth threaten security. This book describes how Africa’s young people spend their time and presents a case for investing in youth in Africa, analyzing the two paths to working life for Africa’s youth: directly (without the benefit of edu- cation) and through school. It also presents new evidence on the effects of education on employment and income in selected countries, and xvii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xvii
examines youth unemployment and its determinants. The case studies conducted in selected African countries analyze policies and programs implemented on youth employment and suggest a policy framework to help African youth successfully transition to working life. Robert Holzmann Yaw Ansu Director, Social Protection Director, Human Development Human Development Network Department The World Bank Africa Region The World Bank xviii Foreword YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xviii
Lisa Dragoset is an economist at Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, United States. Jean Fares is a senior economist at the World Bank’s Human Development Network. Marito Garcia is a lead economist at theWorld Bank’s Human Development Department, Africa Region. Lorenzo Guarcello is a researcher with the Understanding Children’s Work project—a joint World Bank, ILO, and UNICEF project. Florence Kondylis is an economist in the Department of Economics, QMUL and CEP–London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Scott Lyon is a researcher with the Understanding Children’s Work project—a joint World Bank, ILO, and UNICEF project. Marco Manacorda is a professor at the Department of Economics, RHUL and CEP–London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Daniel Parent is a professor of Economics at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Furio Rosati is the Director of Understanding Children’s Work project— a joint World Bank, ILO, and UNICEF project. Cristina Valdivia is a researcher with Understanding Children’s Work project—a joint World Bank, ILO, and UNICEF project. Lars Vilhuber is a research fellow at the Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, United States. Contributors xix YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xix
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This report is a collaborative effort of the Africa Human Development Technical Department, the Social Protection Team of the Human Development Network, and the Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda Country Teams of the World Bank. The report was prepared by a team led by Marito Garcia (Team Leader) and Jean Fares (Co-Task Team Leader). Contributions were made by the study team consultants: Lisa Dragoset, Martha Getachew, Martin Godfrey, Lorenzo Guarcello, Emily Kallaur, Florence Kondylis, Marco Manacorda, Anthony Okech, Barthelemy Ouedraogo, Daniel Parent, Furio Rosati, Joseph Shitundu, Ruth Uwaifo, Lars Vilhuber, and Gillian Virata. Moukim Temorov (Burkina Faso Country Team), Emily Kallaur and Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi (Ethiopia Country Team), Rest Lasway and Robert Utz (Tanzania Country Team), and Suleiman Namara and Mirey Ovadiya (Uganda Country Team) also contributed to the report. The report was prepared under the general guidance of Laura Frigenti (Sector Manager); Yaw Ansu (Sector Director); and Robert Holzmann (Sector Director). Peer reviewers were Emmanuel Jimenez, Linda McGinnis, and Wendy Cunningham. The participants of the one-day workshop on youth in Africa’s labor market held in Washington, D.C., provided valuable guidance to the study team and commented on initial drafts of the country case studies. The team is particularly grateful to Emmanuel Jimenez, Robert Holzmann, M. Louise Fox, Setareh Razmara, Stefano Scarpetta, Pia Peeters, Harold Alderman, Viviana Mangiaterra, Linda McGinnis, Maurizia Tovo, Wendy Cunningham, Daniel Kwabena Boakye, members Acknowledgments xxi YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxi
of the Africa Labor Market Analysis Thematic Group, the Children and Youth Thematic Group, and Laura Brewer (International Labour Organization Geneva). The country case studies were funded partly by the Trust Fund of the ESSD-Social Protection Window.This support is gratefully acknowledged. xxii Acknowledgments YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxii
AGETIP Agence d’Exécution des Travaux d’Intérêt Public BEUPA Basic Education in Urban Poverty Areas BOLSA Bureau for Labour and Social Affairs (Ethiopia) COBET Complementary Basic Education in Tanzania ESDPIII Education Sector Development Plan III GDP gross domestic product GTZ German Agency for Technical Cooperation HIV/AIDS human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome ILFS Integrated Labor Force Survey ILO International Labour Organization LICUS low-income countries under stress MDGs Millennium Development Goals MOLSA Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Ethiopia) NGOs nongovernmental organizations PEAP Poverty Eradication Action Plan PEVDT Promotion of Employment-Oriented Vocational and Technical Training ReMSEDA Regional Micro and Small Enterprises Development Agencies SFSI Standard Files Standard Indicators Database SHLS Survey of Household Living Conditions Abbreviations xxiii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxiii
TVET technical and vocational education and training UCW Understanding Children’s Work UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund VETA Vocational Education and Training Authority, Tanzania xxiv Abbreviations YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxiv
Youth and Africa have received increased attention in recent policy discussions and World Bank work, as articulated in the Africa Action Plan and the World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next Generation. The Africa Action Plan offers a framework to support critical policy and public action led by African countries to achieve well-defined goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The World Development Report’s main message is that the time has never been better to invest in young people living in developing countries. It offers a three- pillar policy framework for investing in and preserving the human capital of the next generation. Both frameworks respond to the desire to find solutions to Africa’s development challenges and to prepare for and benefit from the next generation of workers, parents, and leaders. This report examines the challenges Africa’s youth face in their tran- sition to working life and proposes policies for meeting these challenges. It presents evidence from case studies of 4 countries—Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda—and from household data on 13 coun- tries. The four case studies include a stocktaking of existing policies and programs to address youth employment and labor markets. The overarching message of the report is the call to further invest in the human capital of youth in Sub-Saharan Africa to take advantage of the large youth cohorts there. Youth in Africa leave school too early and enter the labor market unprepared, limiting their contribution to economic growth and increasing their vulnerability to poverty and economic hardship. Executive Summary xxv YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxv
Why Focus on theTransition toWork forYouth in Africa? Youth undergo several transitions between the ages of 12 and 24. During this period, some young people move from primary to secondary educa- tion. Others leave school and start to work. Decisions made during this period affect young people’s acquisition of human capital. These decisions have enormous consequences for their future prospects, as well as those of their communities. The difficulties youth encounter in entering the work force and devel- oping the skills needed to ensure gainful and productive employment can have profound effects on countries’ investment climates and prospects for growth. An educated and healthy work force provides incentives for investment; unskilled and disillusioned youth make returns to investment low and uncertain. For this reason, national gov- ernments and regional bodies have placed this issue squarely on their policy agenda for this decade. Africa’sWindow of Opportunity The demographic transition in Sub-Saharan Africa makes youth the most abundant asset the region has or will have in the near future.About 200 million young people between the ages of 12 and 24 live in Africa today; unlike in the rest of the developing world, the share of youth in the population will continue to rise in Africa. Since the 1950s the youth population in Sub-Saharan Africa has more than quadrupled (UN 2005). This rapid rate of growth has pushed the absolute size of the youth pop- ulation in Sub-Saharan Africa beyond that of many other regions. By 2010 youth will represent about 28 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population, making it the “youngest” region in the world. By 2030 Africa is projected to have as many youth as East Asia and by 2050 could also exceed the youth population in South Asia. This largest-ever youth cohort is more educated and healthier than previous cohorts. Other regions that have seen such an important demo- graphic transition (such as East Asia and Latin America) have had mixed records dealing with it. East Asia, which put the right policies and institutions in place, was able to reap the demographic dividend from a large work force with fewer dependents. In fact, some observers have suggested that up to a third of the Asian miracle growth is attributable to this demographic dividend. In Latin America similar demographic dynamics did not yield better development outcomes. xxvi Executive Summary YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxvi
This opportunity no doubt involves risks. Africa’s youth cohort today faces new challenges, such as HIV/AIDS and global competition. Changes in economic conditions and global forces have increased competition and demand for higher skills, increasing the returns to education, particularly higher levels of education, in countries that are growing. Youth Face Several Challenges inTheirTransition toWork Africa’s youth follow two paths in their transitions to working life. Some go to work directly, with little benefit of formal schooling. Others join the work force after a time in the formal school system. Many young people enter the labor market unprepared, making them more vulnerable to demographic and demand changes affecting the labor market. Few youth earn wages and many work in the informal sector. In rural areas most young people are in unpaid family work, are underem- ployed, or both. In urban areas many young people are unemployed, some of them for long time periods. Those who work are more likely than adults to be stuck in low-productivity jobs. The low-skilled are most vulnerable to weakening demand. Young women have difficulty participating in the labor force. They become discouraged workers and engage in nonmarket activities. African Youth Enter the Labor Market too Early and too Unprepared Early entry into the labor market limits Africans from accumulating the human capital they need to get good jobs. The difficulties they face finding work or participating in the labor force mean that the benefits of earlier investments are not fully realized. Safeguarding and building on these investments will greatly increase the likelihood that Africa benefits from its youth bulge. It will reduce the threat to its security and future development. And because labor is the most abundant asset of the poor, making labor more productive will help move Africans out of poverty. A substantial proportion of young people in most Sub-Saharan African countries never enter school, moving directly into the labor force. In fact, the incidence of child labor in Sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world. In 29 African countries for which data are avail- able, an average of 35 percent of children under the age of 15 work. Exposure to the job market in childhood or early adolescence can have a strong negative impact on future labor market experience and earning Executive Summary xxvii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxvii
potential. Today’s child laborers will represent the weakest part of tomorrow’s adult labor force. African youth enter the labor market lacking skills. Illiteracy among 15- to 24-year-olds is alarmingly high; in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Mozambique more than 75 percent of out-of-school youth have no education at all. Despite enormous improvements in education over the past decade, the primary completion rate in the region—59 percent— remains the lowest in the world.This education gap remains a major hin- drance for Africa’s youth as they transition into working life. Africans who do transition from school to work experience very long periods of inactivity, implying significant labor market entry problems. In 8 of the 13 countries reviewed (Cameroon, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, São Tomé and Principe, and Zambia), young people face about five years of inactivity before finding work; youth in Uganda are inactive for more than three years on average. The transition duration is just one year in Côte d’Ivoire and almost seven years in Mozambique, suggesting that vulnerability to unsuccessful tran- sition varies greatly across countries. Male youth stay in school longer and attain higher education levels than females. They start the transition to work later than females in both urban areas (except in Kenya) and rural areas (except in Kenya and Uganda). Urban youth start working later and have higher education attainment than rural youth. Youth Are Most Vulnerable to Demographic and Macroeconomic Conditions By the age of 24, most Africans have left school and started to work. The proportion of youth at work versus those still in school ranges widely across countries: in Kenya and Malawi, more than 40 percent of youth remain in school, and more youth are in school than at work, while in Burkina Faso and Burundi, more than 70 percent of youth work. Transition to work is often difficult because of the lack of strong employ- ment creation in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and because of several youth-specific factors. These factors include the growing numbers of new entrants into the labor force, market and policy failures that disproportionately affect youth, and the lack of skills required to match the changing nature of labor demand as a result of globalization and technological changes. Increases in the relative size of the youth cohort and the number of new entrants into the work force hurt the employment prospects of youth. Cross-country analysis shows that a 1 percent increase in the share of youth xxviii Executive Summary YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxviii
in the population increases youth unemployment by 0.5 percentage points. Evidence from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Tanzania confirms this link. A close investigation of the labor market for youth also reveals impor- tant market segmentation by urban and rural residence or gender, a result of market and policy failures reducing youth flows between different segments of the labor market. Evidence from Ethiopia documents how employment among low-skilled youth is more vulnerable to economic shocks and demographic changes. In Burkina Faso those who start to work with little or no education are unlikely to move to better occupa- tions years after entry. The Policy Response: Broaden Employment Opportunities, EnhanceYouth Capabilities, and OfferYouth Second Chances Applying the World Development Report 2007 framework to Africa requires increasing employment opportunities for youth in order to safe- guard and further develop their skills, providing youth with the capability to choose among opportunities by equipping them with the right skills and improving their access to information and credit, and giving them second chances, so that no one is left behind. Broadening Opportunities for Employment Economic growth is key to broadening opportunities. It increases employ- ment for everyone—and has a disproportionately large effect on youth. The recent economic expansion in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa will have positive effects on youth. In Ethiopia the evidence shows that youth employment responds positively to increased demand for labor, partly offsetting the pressure of a large cohort of new entrants. A good investment climate—which lets the private sector expand and helps trade flourish—will support economic expansion. These general policies are necessary to promote youth employment opportunities, but they are not sufficient. Youth would also benefit from policies that mitigate the market and policy failures responsible for labor market rigidity and seg- mentation, particularly along the skills and urban-rural dimensions. Increasing Youth’s Capabilities Youth need to be prepared to take advantage of potential opportunities and to create opportunities on their own though self-employment and entrepreneurial activities. Preparation for employment starts with basic good-quality education, which provides the foundation for future human Executive Summary xxix YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxix
capital accumulation and the later acquisition of vocational skills in schools, training institutes, and the workplace (World Bank 2006). In general, higher levels of education are associated with an easier transition to work. But for youth in Africa, education does not always reduce unemployment; in some countries the unemployment rate among educated youth is very high. Over time, however, as youth gain work experience, higher levels of education increase the employment inci- dence and enhance occupational mobility. In Tanzania, after controlling for experience, the incidence of employment among urban men with the highest level of education is about 26 percentage points higher than that of men with no education. In Burkina Faso the initial occupations of youth vary little with education levels, but young people with higher lev- els of education are more likely to move to better occupations over time. In Burkina Faso and Tanzania, school enrollment is negatively affected by adverse income shocks to households, the low education of the household head, and difficulty in access to education, measured by distance to school. Because poor households are more likely to be income-constrained, when faced with negative income shocks, they are more likely to take their children out of school and send them to work. Other households may not realize the incentives for investing in educa- tion, partly because parents with low educational attainment tend to understate the benefits of children’s schooling. Providing a Second Chance Poverty, adverse economic conditions, ill health, employment shocks, and inadequate schools force many young people to leave school, bring- ing early investment to a halt and frustrating their efforts to prepare for work and develop their livelihoods. In Africa, an estimated 95 million young men and women with no education are either unemployed, in low-paying jobs, or totally withdrawn from the labor force. These youth need a second chance. Policy makers are concerned about the difficulties African youth are facing in their transition to work and their need for a second chance. They recognize the consequences for the future development of youth as well as for the development of the economies in which they live. Despite this recognition, the response to the problem has been fragmented, confined to limited interventions.The review of interventions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda shows that most second-chance interventions are small in scale, unevaluated, and face severe challenges for sustainability and scalability. xxx Executive Summary YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxx
TheWay Forward Youth are one of Africa’s most abundant assets. Only by safeguarding early investments and further developing this resource will the region be able to reap the benefit of its unprecedented demographic transition. This window of opportunity is wide open for policies that ensure that countries can move forward to achieve more rapid growth and poverty reduction. Failing to do so will be costly for this generation and for future generations. This report offers some guidance to policy makers searching for solu- tions to address youth employment issues. The approach is based on a policy framework that encompasses the complexity of youth issues and incorporates lessons from international experience. The analyses and the surveys of interventions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda ground the proposed framework in these countries’ realities and provide the background for further empirical examination. The report lays the foundation for mainstreaming youth employment within the World Bank’s operations and supporting the policy dialogue with countries. Executive Summary xxxi YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxxi
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PA R T 1 Youth in Africa’s Labor Market: A Synthesis Marito Garcia and Jean Fares YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 1
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Youth are the most abundant asset Sub-Saharan Africa has—or will have in the near future—because of the demographic transition in the region. About 200 million young people between the ages of 12 and 24 live in Africa today, and their number is growing. Investing in youth will greatly increase the likelihood that Africa will benefit from its youth bulge, and it will reduce the threat to its security and future development. Because labor is the most abundant asset of the poor, improving labor’s produc- tivity is the best way to reduce poverty. Investment in children’s education and health has increased primary enrollment and reduced health risks in several countries in the region. But African youth still enter the labor market early and unprepared, limiting their human capital accumulation and upward mobility. The difficulties of finding work can limit the benefits of investments in their education. Economic growth and overall employment creation are necessary to improve employment outcomes for youth as well, but these conditions are not sufficient. Policy makers need to ensure that youth can take full advantage of the opportunities that growth presents and to minimize policy and market failures that affect youth disproportionately. Policies are needed to help young people develop skills and to increase their access to information and credit so that they are able to make better C H A P T E R 1 Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? Marito Garcia and Jean Fares 3 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 3
choices among available opportunities. The most vulnerable young people should be granted second-chance opportunities to ensure that no one is left behind. Why Focus on theTransition toWork? Youth undergo several transitions between the ages of 12 and 24. During this period some young people move from primary to secondary educa- tion. Others leave school and start to work. Decisions made during this period affect young people’s human capital and future prospects, as well as the development of the communities and regions where they live. One of the most important decisions youth make is when to leave school. Those who leave too early enter the labor market unprepared. They are more vulnerable to shocks, less likely to find work, and more likely to get stuck in low-quality jobs, with few opportunities to develop their human capital and move to better employment. Because labor is the most abundant asset of poor households in Africa, ensuring its proper development when youth are most able to learn and develop is essential to helping families move out of poverty. The difficulties youth encounter entering the work force and developing the skills needed to ensure gainful and productive employment can have profound effects on countries’ investment climates and growth prospects. For this reason, national governments and regional bodies have placed this issue prominently on their policy agenda for this decade. Africa’s DemographicTransition Creates aWindow of Opportunity The developing world today has the largest youth cohort ever—1.2 billion people between the ages of 12 and 24. According to most global popula- tion projections, the world will not see a cohort this large again in the foreseeable future (World Bank 2006). Unlike in the rest of the developing world, the share of youth in the pop- ulation will continue to rise in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the 1950s the youth population in Sub-Saharan Africa has more than quadrupled (figure 1.1; UN 2005).The share of youth in the population in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to increase to about 28 percent in 2010, higher than in any other region in the world. By 2035 Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to have as many youth as East Asia, and by 2050 could also exceed South Asia.1 Demographic factors—such as changes in fertility and mortality rates—are key to understanding the processes underlying the increase in 4 Garcia and Fares YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 4
Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 5 the size of the youth cohort. In some countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya, where fertility rates are high and late to decline, the youth population is projected to continue to increase rapidly over the next several decades. Other countries, such as Senegal, are projected to experience slower growth, with the youth population lev- eling off shortly after 2030 (Lam 2006). These projections are subject to constant revisions and are affected by several shocks, including the prevalence of HIV/AIDS (box 1.1). Everything else equal, a large cohort reduces labor market opportunities for youth. In Europe and the United States, which experienced large demographic shifts after World War II, wages and employment for youth fell as the relative size of the youth cohort grew (Freeman 1979; Korenman and Neumark 2000). Evidence from a large set of developing countries suggests that the estimated elasticity of youth unemployment to the relative youth cohort size is about 0.5 (O’Higgins 2003).This means that a 1 percent increase in the cohort size increases youth unemployment by 0.5 percentage points. Microanalysis from household surveys in Ethiopia and Tanzania indicates that the increase in the youth share in the local labor market leads to a significant decline in the youth employ- ment rate (see chapter 5). A large youth cohort also presents an opportunity for the region, however. The rapid rise in the ratio of the working to the nonworking populations in East Asia between 1965 and 1990 may have played an important role in driving the East Asian “economic miracle” (Bloom and Williamson 1998). Since Sub-Saharan Africa will be faced with similar Figure 1.1. Africa’sYouth Population Is Projected to Grow FasterThanThat of Any Other Region in theWorld Source: UN (2005). 0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 300,000 350,000 400,000 450,000 500,000 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 population 12–24 (in thousands) Sub-Saharan Africa Middle East and North Africa South Asia Europe and Central Asia East Asia and Pacific Latin America and Caribbean YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 5
6 Garcia and Fares Box 1.1 HIV/AIDS Is Projected to Reduce the Size of the Youth Cohort in Southern Africa The population projections of the UN Population Division include projections about AIDS mortality and the potential impact of antiretroviral treatment. They incorporate the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) model used to project the course of the epidemic in the 60 countries with the highest HIV prevalence (UNAIDS 2002). A second set of hypothetical projections is made based on the assumption that there is no AIDS mortality. Comparison of the two sets of projections indicates that AIDS mortality has a substantial impact on the size of the youth population in Botswana, South Africa, and Zambia. There is little difference in the two projections in 2000, but by 2010 the projections begin to diverge. In Botswana, for example, the youth population is projected to peak around 2005 under the medium-variant projection; under the “no AIDS” projection, it would have continued increasing for several more decades. In Zambia AIDS is projected to reduce the size of the youth population by about 15 percent by 2015. AIDS Is Expected to Reduce the Size of theYouth Cohort in Botswana, South Africa, and Zambia Source: Lam 2006. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 Zambia - No AIDS Zambia - AIDS Botswana - No AIDS Botswana - AIDS South Africa - No AIDS South Africa - AIDS population (1980=100) YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 6
demographic dynamics, setting macroeconomic and labor market policies that will help it reap this demographic dividend is essential. The Level of Educational Attainment Has Risen—and Returns to Education Are Rising in Some Countries The average years of educational attainment in Sub-Saharan Africa doubled between 1960 and 2000 (Barro and Lee 2000). Although Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest primary completion rate of any region, at only 59 per- cent in 2003, enormous progress is being made. According to the 2005 Global Monitoring Report, since 1990, 8 of the developing world’s 10 top performers in annual increases in primary completion rates have been in Africa (Benin, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, São Tomé and Principe,Togo, and Malawi). Primary completion rates in these countries have grown by more than 5 percent a year, well above the low-income country average of 0.8 percent a year. All of these countries, which started from a very low base, have enjoyed dramatic growth in enrollment: Ethiopia’s primary gross enrollment rate, for example, doubled in just 10 years, from 37 percent in 1995 to about 74 percent in 2005. These improvement rates far exceed anything achieved by today’s developed countries at a similar stage of development (World Bank 2005). The larger cohorts of primary school finishers are increasing the pressure on secondary school enrollment. Between 1990 and 2003, the increase in the cohort size and the primary completion rate was reflected by an increase of more than 160 percent in the number of primary school graduates in Sub-Saharan Africa, adding significant pressure at higher levels of education (World Bank 2006). In Uganda the share of youth that completed primary school increased while the share of those without primary education shrank between 1992 and 2002; the share of youth with some secondary education almost doubled. With this increase, the economic returns to secondary education rose, reflecting the significant demand for higher skills in the workplace (figure 1.2). In 1999 males in Uganda with primary educa- tion earned 30 percent more and males with secondary education earned 140 percent more than those who did not complete primary school. For females the returns were even greater: females with primary education earned 49 percent more and females with secondary educa- tion earned 150 percent more than those who did not complete primary school (Vilhuber 2006). These figures indicate large increases over the already high returns to education estimated with data from 1992. Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 7 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 7
Despite Progress, Significant Challenges Remain Despite considerable progress in the region, youth continue to face chal- lenges in successfully transitioning to work, including high involvement in child labor, low educational attainment, predominantly informal employ- ment opportunities, low human capital investment outside of school, high illiteracy rates, and other barriers. • Child labor. The incidence of child labor in Sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world. In 29 African countries for which data are avail- able, an average of 35 percent of children under the age of 15 work outside the home (figure 1.3).These estimates are likely to understate child labor because of the difficulties of capturing various activities children undertake outside the market and because of the short spells of work that may be missed by surveys. The variation across countries in the region is significant, with extremely high levels of child labor in Sierra Leone and Togo. • Low educational attainment. As a result of early entry into the work force, the out-of-school population has very low educational attainment in most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (figure 1.4). In Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, more than 75 percent of out-of-school youth have no education at all. In almost all countries in the region, a majority of out-of-school youth did not finish primary school. 8 Garcia and Fares Figure 1.2. Economic Returns to Secondary Education Are High and Rising Faster Than Educational Attainment in Uganda Source: 1999 Uganda National Household Survey data; see chapter 11. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 m a l e , 1 9 9 2 m a l e , 1 9 9 9 f e m a l e , 1 9 9 2 f e m a l e , 1 9 9 9 relative returns (reference less than primary, %) primary secondary did not complete primary completed primary some secondary 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 1992 educational attainment (%) 1999 2002 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 8
Educational attainment figures tell only part of the story, because they fail to capture the low quality of education. In several countries less than half of women 15–24 with some primary schooling can read a simple sentence. In Namibia more than 80 percent of children finish primary school, but less than 20 percent master the material covered. (See figure 1.5.) • Predominantly informal employment creation. The incidence of self- employment among youth is high (figure 1.6). In some countries, including Burundi, The Gambia, and Zambia, almost all rural youth Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 9 Figure 1.3.Too Many Children AreWorking in Many Sub-Saharan African Countries Source: Fares and Raju 2006. Figure 1.4.The Level of Education among Out-of-SchoolYouth in Africa Is Low 81.9 46.6 26.2 56.6 80.4 65.1 7.7 0.9 18.5 76.3 5.6 21.4 13.1 11.5 43.1 44 21.1 9.6 9.1 36.8 61.1 16.7 12 48.6 30.8 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 percent 80 90 100 S ã o T o m é a n d P r i n c i p e U g a n d a Z a m b i a 50.9 B u r k i n a F a s o B u r u n d i C a m e r o o n C ô t e d ' I v o i r e E t h i o p i a T h e G a m b i a K e n y a M a d a g a s c a r M a l a w i M o z a m b i q u e no education did not complete primary completed primary completed secondary or higher Source: Understanding Children’s Work calculations based on World Bank Standard Files and Standard Indicators datasets; see chapter 7 in UN (2005). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 S i e r r a L e o n e T o g o C h a d G u i n e a - B i s s a u B u r k i n a F a s o E t h i o p i a G u i n e a C o m o r o s C ô t e d ’ I v o i r e T a n z a n i a C o n g o , D e m . R e p . o f B u r u n d i S e n e g a l R w a n d a L e s o t h o G h a n a S o u t h A f r i c a M a d a g a s c a r T h e G a m b i a M a l i S u d a n C a m e r o o n N a m i b i a Z a m b i a U g a n d a S w a z i l a n d M a l a w i K e n y a incidence of economically active children (%) C e n t r a l A f r i c a n R e p u b l i c YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 9
employment is in the informal and self-employment sectors. In urban areas some young people work in paid employment, but even there almost 80 percent of youth in Cameroon and Kenya work in the infor- mal sector or are self-employed. • Low investment in human capital. Investment in human capital outside of school has lagged. In the formal sector, skill development schemes continue to be supply-driven and disconnected from the demands of the labor market (Adams 2006). In the informal sector, traditional apprenticeship is still the main mechanism for skill development for new entrants. The strength of the traditional apprenticeship is its 10 Garcia and Fares Figure 1.5.The Level of LiteracyVariesWidely in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Higher- Income CountriesTending to Have Higher Literary Rates 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 6 log GDP per capita literacy rate among youth (%) 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 Source: Fares and Raju 2006.. Figure 1.6. Most AfricanYouthWork in the Informal Sector or Are Self-Employed 0 20 40 60 80 100 S ã o T o m é a n d P r i n c i p e M a l a w i Z a m b i a M o z a m b i q u e B u r u n d i B u r k i n a F a s o K e n y a M a d a g a s c a r E t h i o p i a C a m e r o o n rural urban informally and self-employed youth (%) T h e G a m b i a Source: Understanding Children’s Work calculations based on World Bank Standard Files and Standard Indicators datasets; see chapter 7. YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 10
practical orientation, self-regulation, and self-financing. It reaches those who lack the educational requirement needed for formal train- ing and is generally cost-effective. Apprenticeship tends to be biased against young women, however, and perpetuates the use of traditional and outdated technologies (World Bank 2006). • High illiteracy among 15–24-year-olds. Literacy rates vary widely in Sub-Saharan Africa. Several countries, including Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, South Africa, and Tanzania, have raised literacy rates above 90 percent; in others the literacy rate among youth is estimated to be as low as 30 percent. Literacy among youth increases with income (figure 1.5). Large variations even among countries with similar income levels point to the significant challenges coun- tries face in developing young people’s skills and integrating youth into the work force. • Barriers to youth entry into the labor market. In 2003 more than 18 million youth in Sub-Saharan Africa—21 percent of the work force—were unemployed. This figure rose 32.5 percent between 1993 and 2003. In rapidly growing urban areas, the level of youth unemployment is three to four times that of adults. In other areas, a large proportion of the pop- ulation, particularly females, remains outside the labor market. Among females who are not in school,more than 50 percent in Mozambique and 60 percent in Ethiopia are outside the labor force (see chapter 5).These high estimates may be attributable to measurement problems, particu- larly for young girls and women working within their own households. In Tanzania the majority of young females report that the main reason they are not looking for work is their household responsibilities. The Policy Response A successful policy response to the challenge of youth employment rests on three pillars: broadening opportunities for young people to accumulate and preserve human capital, increasing the capability of youth to take advantage of work opportunities, and providing a second chance, so that no one is left behind. Broadening opportunities to acquire human capital is essential to continue the progress already made on primary education. More needs to be done to increase access to postprimary education and enhance the quality of education. The challenge in the labor market is to create Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 11 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 11
jobs that allow youth to protect and continue to develop their human capital. Beyond schools, youth need access to skill development through apprenticeship schemes, both formal and informal, and voca- tional education driven by the needs in the labor market.The large stock of low-skilled youth (child laborers, school drop-outs, and former soldiers) facing difficulties accessing the labor market calls for a system of second chances to reintegrate youth into the work force. The costs of failure are tremendous. Broadening Opportunities in the Labor Market Broadening opportunities in the labor market for youth not only allows young people to put the skills acquired in school to use, it also helps ensure that they continue to acquire and develop the skills needed to earn a good livelihood. Because youth tend to learn most in their early years of work experience, the difficulties they face entering employment can lead to deterioration in their human capital and the loss of early investment in skill development—with long-lasting effects on their future work. Economic growth and general job creation will expand the opportu- nities for youth to find work. In Ethiopia the estimated youth employment elasticity of demand is positive, exceeding one in several instances (figure 1.7). But general policies will not be sufficient to smooth the transition to work, because market and policy failures limit young people’s ability to take advantage of opportunities (see chapter 6).The demographic pressure 12 Garcia and Fares Figure 1.7. Less-SkilledYouth Are MostVulnerable to Changes in the Supply of and Demand for Labor in Ethiopia –6 –5 –4 –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 never attended school primary or less lower secondary (not completed) lower secondary higher education youth educational attainment adult employment ratio (demand) share of population (supply) estimated employment elasticity of demand/supply Source: World Bank calculations, based on chapter 9 in this report. YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 12
from the large youth cohort entering the labor market will adversely affect youth employment in Africa. Policies need to ensure that demand will off- set these pressures and allow the market to absorb these new cohorts into productive employment. Increasing the Capability of Youth to Take Advantage of Work Opportunities Increasing youth capability starts with providing young men and women with the relevant skills and information they need to enter work. Because many youth start work too early, they do not have the chance to accumulate the minimum level of human capital needed to be well prepared in their transition to the labor market. In Ethiopia less-skilled youth are much more vulnerable than other youth to fluctuations in economic conditions and to supply pressures from changes in the size of the youth cohort (figure 1.7). Improving their skills, in school and beyond, is necessary to protect them from supply and demand shocks. Youth need to be empowered so they can work for themselves and create jobs for others. Empowering them to do so requires improving the business climate and increasing youth access to credit and information. Giving Youth a Second Chance Many youth in Sub-Saharan Africa need a second chance. Weather, economic, and political fluctuations are common, and youth are most vulnerable to these shocks. Many young people are infected with HIV; others are AIDS orphans. Because youth experiment early on in their careers, they are more mobile and more likely to change jobs or residence than other workers. But doing so involves risks. Giving youth a second chance will permit them to better manage these risks, allowing them to recover from shocks and move to more productive opportunities. Second-chance opportunities are particularly important for the estimated 95 million unskilled youth in Africa who are out of school and either unemployed or underemployed.2 Governments everywhere in Africa are considering providing them with a second chance, through well-targeted training programs or direct employment creation. Some countries are implementing short-term interventions needed as a bridge response. Long-term policies that increase the opportunities and the capability of youth are also taking shape in some countries. With almost half of Africa’s youth in need of second-chance opportunities, these policies need to be a priority. Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 13 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 13
Notes 1. The UN World Population Prospects projects that Sub-Saharan Africa will have more youth than any other region by 2050. Projections over long horizons are very uncertain and unreliable, however. 2. This estimate is based on the assumption that the average share of unskilled youth in Sub-Saharan Africa is equal to the estimated average share of unskilled youth in the 13 countries with available data on educational attainment. 14 Garcia and Fares YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 14
Africa’s youth follow two paths in their transitions to working life. Some go to work directly, without benefit of formal schooling. Others join the work force after spending time in the formal school system. A substantial proportion of young people in most Sub-Saharan African countries never enter school, moving directly into the labor force. The incidence of child labor in Sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world. In 29 African countries for which data are available, an average of 35 percent of children under the age of 15 work (Fares and Raju 2006). Early exposure to the job market in childhood or early adolescence can have a strong negative impact on future labor market experience and earning potential. Today’s child laborers will represent the weakest part of tomorrow’s adult labor force. Africans who transition from school to work experience very long peri- ods of inactivity, implying significant labor market entry problems. In 8 of the 13 countries reviewed (Cameroon, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, São Tomé and Principe, and Zambia), young people face about five years of inactivity before finding work; youth in Uganda are inactive for more than three years on average. The transition duration is just one year in Côte d’Ivoire and almost seven years in Mozambique. These large differences indicate that the vulnerability of young people to unsuccessful transition varies greatly across countries. C H A P T E R 2 Transitions to Working Life for Africa’s Youth Marito Garcia and Jean Fares 15 YALM_15-26 3/13/08 5:32 PM Page 15
School nonentrants are a great policy concern because of their vul- nerability to undesirable transition outcomes. School nonentrants are among the groups most vulnerable to child labor, therefore, finding sat- isfactory employment as adults cannot be separated from the issue of child labor. The size of the group of school nonentrants varies widely across coun- tries. In one broad group of countries, at least 90 percent of children attend school for at least some period of time. In a second group of coun- tries, the percentage of children and youth not transiting through the school system is much higher, ranging from 17 percent in Cameroon to 70 percent in Burkina Faso. In 5 of the 13 countries examined in this report, more than 40 percent of 13-year-olds are working (table 2.1). In Burkina Faso and Uganda, more than 63 percent of 10-year-olds are out of school and working. The average age at first job for children never attending school varies greatly across countries. In Kenya children begin work at about 15; in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Principe children begin work at 16–17. In contrast, children begin work at about 8 years old in Burkina Faso and at 10 in Burundi. In Zambia about 23 percent of children are already working by age 10, and like Burundi, 42 percent are working by the time they reach 13. Of the world’s 250 million child workers, one-third live in Africa. Africa has the highest incidence of child labor in the world, and it has more child workers than any other region of the world. Twenty-five percent of child workers ages 5–14 live in Africa—more than in Asia 16 Garcia and Fares Table 2.1. Age of First Job and Percentage of ChildrenWorking in Selected Countries Age at Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of Country first job 10-year-olds working 12-year-olds working 13-year-olds working Burkina Faso 8.4 63.6 66.0 68.3 Burundi 10.2 22.5 35.5 42.2 Cameroon 11.2 32.7 30.6 32.1 Côte d’Ivoire 11.5 13.7 10.1 8.9 Ethiopia 16.5 15.4 13.7 17.0 Kenya 14.8 8.2 16.4 17.5 Mozambique 17.1 3.9 6.7 13.2 São Tomé and Principe 16.3 9.1 10.8 13.5 Uganda 13.8 63.6 66.0 68.3 Zambia 14.5 22.5 35.5 42.2 Source: Understanding Children’s Work calculations based on World Bank Standard Files and Standard Indicators datasets; see chapter 7. YALM_15-26 3/13/08 5:32 PM Page 16
(18.7 percent) or Latin America (17.0 percent). Child labor has been declining everywhere in the world but Africa (ILO 2006). This trend is linked to a combination of factors, including economic decline, war, famine, and HIV/AIDS. In West Africa the need for children to find work has led to child migration to Benin. Eight percent of children 6–16 in West Africa are reported to have left their households to work in Benin. Children who are orphans or in foster care are more likely than other children to work (Kielland and Tovo 2006). Wars, famine, and the spread of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa have increased the number of orphans, potentially increasing the number of child workers. The incidence of child labor poses an enormous challenge in Sub- Saharan Africa. Working can have deleterious effects on children’s health, education, and moral well-being, with effects that persist over the lifecycle (Bhalotra 2003). In Tanzania a nonnegligible proportion of the population starts to work at an early age, either dropping out of or never attending school. In Ethiopia, where the rate of child labor force participation may be the highest in the world, more than 40 percent of 5- to 9-year-old urban males are involved in economic activities (figure 2.1; Cockburn 2002). More than a third of all 5- to 14-year-olds in Ethiopia—more than 5 million children—were at work in economic activity in 2001. Child labor is also widespread in Burkina Faso. The problem is particularly serious in rural areas, but even in urban areas about 10 percent of children work. Most African children who work are unpaid family members, parti- cularly in rural areas. As children grow older, they engage in more wage employment and are more likely to work as paid domestic helpers, although wage employment is still limited. In Ethiopia most child laborers Transitions to Working Life for Africa’s Youth 17 0 20 40 60 80 100 5 age in years male female male female urban rural children in labor force (%) 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Figure 2.1. Child Participation in the Labor Force Is High, Particularly among Rural Males in Ethiopia Source: Understanding Children’s Work calculations based on Ethiopia Labor Force Survey 2001; see chapter 9. YALM_15-26 3/13/08 5:32 PM Page 17
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"There is a Green Hill far away Without a city wall, Where our dear Lord was crucified, Who died to save us—all." and she sang "From the Desert I come to thee, On a stallion shod with fire! And the winds are not more fleet Than the wings of my de-sire!" Like an Innocent pouring kerosene on the Flame-of-the-World the young voice soared and swelled to that lovely, limpid word "desire." (In the darkness I saw Paul Brenswick's hand clutch suddenly out to his Mate's. In the darkness I saw George Keets switch around suddenly and begin to whisper very fast to Allan John.) And then she sang a little nonsense rhyme about "Rabbits" which she explained rather shyly she had just made up. "She was very fond of rabbits," she explained. "And of dogs, too—if all the truth were to be told. Also cats." "Also—shells!" sniffed young Kennilworth. "Yes, also shells," conceded the May Girl without resentment. "Ha!" sniffed young Kennilworth. "O—h, a—jealous lover, this," deprecated George Keets. "Really, Miss Davies," he condoned, "I'm afraid to-morrow is going to be somewhat of a strain on you." "To-morrow?" dimpled the May Girl. "Ha!—To-morrow!" shrugged young Kennilworth. "It was the rabbits," dimpled the May Girl, "that I was going to tell you about now. It's a very moral song written specially to deplore the—the thievish habits of the rabbits. But I can't seem to get
around to the 'deploring' until the second verse. All the first verse is just scientific description." Adorably the young voice lilted into the nonsense—— "Oh, the habit of a rabbit Is a fact that would amaze From the pinkness of his blinkness and the blandness of his gaze, In a nose that's so a-twinkle like a merri—perri—winkle— And—" Goodness me!—That voice!—The babyishness of it!—And the poignancy! Should one laugh? Or should one cry? Clap one's hands? Or bolt from the room? I decided to bolt from the room. Both my Husband and myself thought it would be only right to telephone Dr. Brawne about the fainting spell. There was a telephone fortunately in my own room. And there is one thing at least very compensatory about telephoning to doctors. If you once succeed in finding them, there is never an undue lag in the conversation itself. "But tell me only just one thing," I besought my Husband, "so I won't be talking merely to a voice! This Dr. Brawne of yours?—Is he old or young? Fat or thin? Jolly? Or——?" "He's about fifty," said my Husband. "Fifty-five perhaps. Stoutish rather, I think you'd call him. And jolly. Oh, I——" "Ting-a-ling—ling—ling!" urged the telephone-bell. Across a hundred miles of dripping, rain-bejeweled wires, Dr. Brawne's voice flamed up at last with an almost metallic crispness. "Yes?" "This is Dr. Brawne?" "Yes." "This is Mrs. Delville—Jack Delville's wife."
"Yes?" "We just thought we'd call up and report the safe arrival of your ward and tell you how much we are enjoying her!" "Yes? I trust she didn't turn up with any more lame, halt, or blind pets than you were able to handle." "Oh no—no—not—at all!" I hastened to affirm. (Certainly it seemed no time to explain about poor Allan John.) "But what I really called up to say," I hastened to confide, "is that she fainted this afternoon, and——" "Yes?" crisped the clear incisive voice again. "Fainted," I repeated. "Yes?" "Fainted!" I fairly shouted. "Oh, I hardly think that's anything," murmured Dr. Brawne. His voice sounded suddenly very far away and muffled as though he were talking through a rather soggy soda biscuit. "She faints very easily. I don't find anything the matter. It's just a temporary instability, I think. She's grown so very fast." "Yes, she's tall," I admitted. "Everything else all right?" queried the voice. The wires were working better now. "I don't need to ask if she's having a good time," essayed the voice very courteously. "She's always so essentially original in her ways of having a good time—even with strangers—even when she's really feeling rather shy." "Oh, she's having a good time, all right," I hastened to assure him. "Three perfectly eligible young men all competing for her favor!" "Only three?" laughed the voice. "You surprise me!" "And speaking of originality," I rallied instantly to that laugh, "she has invented the most diverting game! She is playing at being- engaged-to-a-different-man—every day of her visit. Oh very
circumspectly, you understand," I hastened to affirm. "Nothing serious at all!" "No, I certainly hope not," mumbled the voice again through some maddeningly soggy connection. "Because, you see, I'm rather expecting to marry her myself on the fifteenth of September next." CHAPTER IV SLEEP is a funny thing! Really comical I mean! A magician's trick! "Now you have it—and now you don't!" Certainly I had very little of it the night of Dr. Brawne's telephone conversation. I was too surprised. Yet staring up through those long wakeful hours into the jetty black heights of my bedroom ceiling it didn't seem to be so much the conversation itself as the perfectly irrelevant events succeeding that conversation that kept hurtling back so into my visual consciousness —The blueness of the May Girl's eyes! The brightness of her hair!— Rollins's necktie! The perfectly wanton hideousness of Rollins's necktie!—The bang—bang—bang of a storm- tortured shutter way off in the ell somewhere. Step by step, item by item, each detail of events reprinted itself on my mind. Fumbling back from the shadowy telephone- stand into the brightly lighted upper hall with the single desire to find my Husband and confide to him as expeditiously as possible this news which had so amazed me, I had stumbled instead upon the May Girl herself, climbing somewhat listlessly up the stairs toward bed, Rollins was close behind her carrying her book and a filmy sky-blue scarf. George Keets followed with a pitcher of water. "Oh, it isn't Good Night, dear, is it?" I questioned. "Yes," said the May Girl. "I'm—pretty tired." She certainly looked it. Rollins quite evidently was in despair. He was not to accomplish his 'kiss' after all, it would seem. All the long day, I judged, he had been
whipping up his cheeky courage to meet some magic opportunity of the evening. And now, it appeared, there wasn't going to be any evening! Even the last precious moment indeed was to be ruined by George Keets's perfidious intrusion! It was the Bride's voice though that rang down the actual curtain on Rollins's "Perfect Day." "Oh, Miss Davies!—Miss Davies!" called the Bride. "You mustn't forget to return your ring, you know!" "Why, no, so I mustn't," rallied the May Girl. Twice I heard Rollins swallow very hard. Any antique was sacred to him, but a family antique. Oh, ye gods! "K—K—Keep the ring!" stammered Rollins. It was the nearest point to real heroism surely that funny little Rollins would ever attain. "Oh, no, indeed," protested the May Girl. Very definitely she snapped the silken threads, removed the clumsy bauble from her finger, and handed it back to Rollins. "But—but it's a beautiful ring!" she hastened chivalrously to assure him. "I'll—I'll keep the orchids!" she assented with real dimples. On Rollins's sweating face the symptoms of acute collapse showed suddenly. With a glare that would have annihilated a less robust soul than George Keets's he turned and laid bare his horrid secret to an unfeeling Public. "I'd rather you kept the ring," sweated Rollins. "The—The orchids have got to go back!—I only hired the orchids!—That is I—I bribed the gardener. They've got to be back by nine o'clock to-night. For some sort of a—a party." "To-night?" I gasped. "In all this storm f Why, what if the May Girl had refused to—to——?" In Rollins's small, blinking eyes, Romance and Thrift battled together in terrible combat. "I gotta go back," mumbled Rollins. "He's got my watch!"
"Oh, for goodness sake you mustn't risk losing your watch!" laughed the May Girl. George Keets didn't laugh. He hooted! I had never heard him hoot before, and ribald as the sound seemed emanating from his distinctly austere lips, the mechanical construction of that hoot was in some way strangely becoming to him. The May Girl quite frankly though was afraid he had hurt Rollins's feelings. Returning swiftly from her bedroom with the lovely exotics bunched cautiously in one hand she turned an extravagantly tender smile on Rollins's unhappy face. "Just—Just one of them," she apologized, "is crushed a little. I know you told me to be awfully careful of them. I'm very sorry. But truly," she smiled, "it's been perfectly Wonderful—just to have them for a day! Thank you!—Thank you a whole lot, I mean! And for the day itself—it's—it's been very—pleasant," she lied gallantly. Snatching the orchids almost roughly from her hand Rollins gave another glare at George Keets and started for his own room. With his fingers on the door-handle he turned and glared back with particular ferocity at the May Girl herself. "Pleasant?" he scoffed. "Pleasant?" And crossing the threshold he slammed the door hard behind him. Never have I seen anything more boorish! "Why—Why, how tired he must be," exclaimed the May Girl. "Tired?" hooted George Keets. He was still hooting when he joined the Bride and Bridegroom in the library. It must have been fifteen minutes later that, returning from an investigation of the banging blind, I ran into Rollins stealing surreptitiously to the May Girl's door. Quite unconsciously, doubtless, but with most rapacious effect, his sparse hair was rumpled in innumerable directions, and the stealthy boy-pirate hunch to his shoulders added the last touch of melodrama to the scene. Rollins, as a gay Lothario, was certainly a new idea. I could have screamed
with joy. But while I debated the ethics of screaming for joy only, the May Girl herself, as though in reply to his crafty knock, opened her door and stared frankly down at him with a funny, flushed sort of astonishment. She was in her great boyish blanket- wrapper, with her gauzy gold hair wafting like a bright breeze across her neck and shoulders, and the radiance of her I think would have startled any man. But it knocked the breath out of Rollins. "P-p-pleasant!" gasped Rollins, quite abruptly. "It was a—a Miracle!" "—Miracle?" puzzled the May Girl. "Wall-papers!" babbled Rollins. "Suppose it had been true?" he besought her. "To-day, I mean? Our betrothal?" With total unexpectedness he began to flutter a handfull of wall-paper samples under the May Girl's astonished nose. "I've got a little flat you know in town," babbled Rollins. "Just one room and bath. It's pretty dingy. But for a long time now I've been planning to have it all repapered. And if you'd choose the wallpaper for it—it would be pleasant to think of during—during the years!" babbled Rollins. "What?" puzzled the May Girl. Then quite suddenly she reached out and took the papers from Rollins's hand and bent her lovely head over them in perfectly solemn contemplation. "Why—why the pretty gray one with the white gulls and the flash of blue!" she decided almost at once, looked up for an instant, smiled straight into Rollins's fatuous eyes, and was gone again behind the impregnable fastness of her closed door, leaving Rollins gasping like a fool, his shoulders drooping, his limp hands clutching the sheet of white gulls with all the absurd manner of an amateur prima donna just on the verge of bursting into song! And all of a sudden starting to laugh I found myself crying instead. It was the expression in Rollins's eyes, I think. The one "off-guard" expression perhaps of Rollins's life! A scorching flame of self- revelation, as it were, that consumed even as it illuminated, leaving only gray ashes and perplexity. Not just the look it was of a Little- Man-Almost- Old-who-had-Never-Had-a-Chance-to-Play. But the look
of a Little-Man-Almost-Old who sensed suddenly for the first time that he never would have a chance to play! That Fate denying him the glint of wealth, the flash of romance, the scar even of tragedy, had stamped him merely with the indelible sign of a Person-Who wasn't—Meant to-be-Liked! Truly I was very glad to steal back into my dark room for a moment before trotting downstairs again to join all those others who were essentially intended for liking and loving, so eminently fitted, whether they refused or accepted it, for the full moral gamut of human experience. On my way down it was only human, of course, to stop in the May Girl's room. Rollins or no Rollins it was the May Girl's problem that seemed to me the only really maddening one of the moment. What in creation was life planning to proffer the May Girl?—Dr. Brawne?— Dr. Brawne?—It wasn't just a question of Dr. Brawne! But a question of the May Girl herself? She was still in her blanket-wrapper when I entered the room, but had hopped into bed, and sat bolt-up-right rocking vaguely, with her knees gathered to her chin in the circle of her slender arms. "What seems to be the matter?" I questioned. "That's what I don't know," she dimpled almost instantly. "But I seem to be worrying about something. "Worrying?" I puzzled. "Well,—maybe it's about the Pom dog," suggested the May Girl helpfully. "His mouth is so very—very tiny. Do you think he had enough supper?" "Oh, I'm sure he had enough supper," I hastened to reassure her. Very reflectively she narrowed her eyes to review the further field of her possible worries. "That cat—that your Husband said he sent away just before I came for fear I'd bring some—some contradictory animals—are you quite
sure that he's got a good home?" she worried. "Oh, the best in the world," I said. "A Maternity Hospital!" "Kittens?" brightened the May Girl for a single instant only. "Oh, you really mean kittens? Then surely there's nothing to worry about in that direction!" "Nothing but—kittens," I conceded. "Then it must be Allan John," said the May Girl. "His feet! Of course, I can't exactly help feeling pretty responsible for Allan John. Are you sure—are you quite sure, I mean, that he hasn't been sitting round with wet feet all the evening? He isn't exactly the croupy type, of course, but—" With a sudden irrelevant gesture she unclasped her knees, and shot her feet straight out in front of her. "Whatever in the world," she cried out, "am I going to do with Allan John when it comes time to go home! Now gold-fish," she reflected, "in a real emergency,—can always be tucked away in the bath-tub. And once when I brought home a Japanese baby," she giggled in spite of herself, "they made me keep it in my own room. But——" "But I've got a worry of my own," I interrupted. "It's about your fainting. It scared me dreadfully. I've just been telephoning to Dr. Brawne about it." Across the May Girl's supple body a curious tightness settled suddenly. "You—told—Dr. Brawne that—I fainted?" she said. "You—you oughtn't to have done that!" It was only too evident that she was displeased. "But we were worried," I repeated. "We had to tell him. We didn't like to take the responsibility." With her childish hands spread flatly as a brace on either side of her she seemed to retreat for a moment into the gold veil of her hair. Then very resolutely her face came peering out again. "And just what did Dr. Brawne—tell you?" asked the May Girl.
"Why something very romantic," I admitted. "The somewhat astonishing news, in fact, that you were engaged—to him." "Oh, but you know, I'm not!" protested the May Girl with unmistakable emphasis. "No—No!" "And that he was hoping to be married next September. On the 15th to be perfectly exact," I confided. "Well, very likely I shall marry him," admitted the May Girl somewhat bafflingly. "But I'm not engaged to him now! Oh, I'm much too young to be engaged to him now! Why, even my grandmother thinks I'm much too young to be engaged to him now!—Why, he's most fifty years old!" she affirmed with widely dilating eyes. "—And I—I've scarcely been off my grandmother's place, you know, until this last winter! But if I'm grown-up enough by September, they say—you see I'll be eighteen and a half by September," she explained painstakingly, "so that's why I wanted to get engaged as much as I could this week!" she interrupted herself with quite merciless irrelevance. "If I've got to be married in September—without ever having been engaged or courted at all—I just thought I'd better go to work and pick up what experience I could—on my own hook!" "Dr.—Dr. Brawne will, of course, make you a very distinguished husband," I stammered, "but are you sure you love him?" "I love everybody!" dimpled the May Girl. "Yes, dogs, of course," I conceded, "and Rabbits—and horses and ——" "And kittens," supplemented the May Girl. "Your mother is—not living?" I asked rather abruptly. "My father is dead," said the May Girl. "But my mother is in Egypt." Her lovely face was suddenly all excitement. "My mother ran away!" "Oh! An elopement, you mean?" I laughed. "Ran away with your father. Youngsters used to do romantic things like that."
"Ran away from my father," said the May Girl. "And from me. It was when I was four years old. None of us have ever seen her since. It was with one of Dr. Brawne's friends that she ran away. That's one reason, I think, why Dr. Brawne has always felt so sort of responsible for me." "Oh, dear—oh, dear, this is very sad," I winced. "N-o," said the May Girl perfectly simply. "Maybe it was bad but I'm almost sure it's never been sad. Dr. Brawne hears from her sometimes. Mother's always been very happy, I think. But everybody somehow seems to be in an awful hurry to get me settled." "Why?" I asked quite starkly, and could have bitten my tongue out for my impertinence. "Why—because I'm so tall, I suppose," said the May Girl. "And not so very specially bright. Oh, not nearly as bright as I am tall!" she hastened to assure me with her pretty nose all crinkled up for the sheer emphasis of her regret. "Life's rather hard, you know, on tall women," she confided sagely. "Always trying to take a tuck in them somewhere! Mother was tall," she observed; "and Father, they say, was always and forever trying to make her look smaller—especially in public! Pulling her opinions out from under her! Belittling all her great, lovely fancies and ideas! Not that he really meant to be hateful, I suppose. But he just couldn't help it. It was just the natural male-instinct I guess of wanting to be the everythinger— himself!" "What do you know of the natural male 'instinct'?" I laughed out in spite of myself. "Oh—lots," smiled the May Girl. "I have an uncle. And my grandmother always keeps two hired men. And for almost six months now I've been at the Art School. And there are twenty- seven boys at the Art School. Why there's Jerry and Paul and Richard and—and——" "Yes, but your father and mother?" I pondered. "Just how——?"
"Oh, it was when they were walking downtown one day past a great big mirror," explained the May Girl brightly. "And Mother saw that she was getting round-shouldered trying to keep down to Father's level—it was then that she ran away! It was then that she began to run away I mean! To run away in her mind! I heard grandmother and Dr. Brawne talking about it only last summer. But I?" she affirmed with some pride, "oh, I've known about being tall ever since I first had starch enough in my knees to stand up! While I stayed in my crib I don't suppose I noticed it specially. But just as soon as I was big enough to go to school. Why, even at the very first," she glowed, "when every other child in the room had failed without the slightest reproach some perfectly idiotic visitor would always pipe up and say, 'Now ask that tall child there! The one with the yellow hair!' And everyone would be as vexed as possible because I failed, too! It isn't my head, you know that's tall," protested the May Girl with some feeling, "it's just my neck and legs! "You certainly are entrancingly graceful," I smiled. How anybody as inexpressibly lovely as the May Girl could be so oblivious of the fact was astonishing! But neither smile nor compliment seemed to allay to the slightest degree the turmoil that was surging in the youngster's mind. "Why, even at the Art School," she protested, "it's just as bad! Especially with the boys! Being so tall—and with yellow hair besides —you just can't possibly be as important as you are conspicuous! And yet every individual boy seems obliged to find out for himself just exactly how important you are! But no matter what he finds," she shrugged with a gesture of ultimate despair, "it always ends by everybody getting mad!" "Mad?" I questioned. "Yes—very mad," said the May Girl. "Either he's mad because he finds you're not nearly as nice as you are conspicuous, or else, liking you most to death, he simply can't stand it that anyone as nice as he thinks you are is able to outplay him at tennis or—that's why I like
animals best—and hurt things!" she interrupted herself with characteristic impetuosity. "Animals and hurt things don't care how rangy your arms are as long as they're loving! Why if you were as tall as a tree," she argued, "little deserted birds in nests would simply be glad that you could reach them that much sooner! But men? Why, even your nice Mr. Keets," she cried; "even your nice Mr. Keets, with his fussy old Archaeology, couldn't even play at being engaged without talking down—down—down at me! Tall as he is, too! And funny little old Mr. Rollins," she flushed. "Little—little—old Mr. Rollins—Mr. Rollins really liked me, I think, but he—he'd torture me if he thought it would make him feel any burlier! "And Claude Kennilworth," I questioned. The shiver across the May Girl's shoulders looked suddenly more like a thrill than a distaste. "Oh, Claude Kennilworth," she acknowledged quite ingenuously. "He's begun already to try to 'put me in my place'! Altogether too independent is what he thinks I am. But what he really means is 'altogether too tall'!" Once again the little shiver flashed across her shoulders. "He's so—so awfully temperamental!" she quickened. "Goodness knows what fireworks he'll introduce tomorrow! I can hardly wait!" "Is—is Dr. Brawne—tall?" I asked a bit abruptly. "N—o," admitted the May Girl. "He's quite short! But—his years are so tall!" she cried out triumphantly. "He's so tall in his attainments! I've thought it all out—oh very—very carefully," she attested. "And if I've got to be married in order to have someone to look out for me I'm almost perfectly positive that Dr. Brawne will be quite too amused at having so young a wife to bully me very much about anything that goes with the youngness!" "Oh—h," I said. "Yes,—exactly," mused the May Girl.
With a heart and an apprehension just about as gray and as heavy as lead I rose and started for the door. "But, May Girl?" I besought her in a single almost hysterical desire to rouse her from her innocence and her ignorance. "Among all this great array of men and boys that you know— the uncle—yes, even the hired men," I laughed, "and all those blue-smocked boys at the Art School—whom do you really like the best?" So far her eyes journeyed off into the distance and back again I thought that she had not heard me. Then quite abruptly she answered me. And her voice was all boy-chorister again. "The best?—why, Allan John!" she said. Taken all in all there were several things said and done that evening that would have kept any normal hostess awake, I think. The third morning dawned even rainier than the second! Infinitely rainier than the first! It gave everybody's coming-down-stairs expression a curiously comical twist as though Dame Nature herself had been caught off-guard somehow in a moment of dishabille that though inexpressibly funny, couldn't exactly be referred to—not among mere casual acquaintances—not so early in the morning, anyway! Yet even though everybody rushed at once to the fireplace instead of to the breakfast-table nobody held us responsible for the weather. Everyone in fact seemed to make rather an extra effort to assure us that he or she—as the case might be, most distinctly did not hold us responsible. Paul Brenswick indeed grew almost eloquent telling us about an accident to the weather which he himself had witnessed in a climate as supposedly well-regulated as the climate of South Eastern Somewhere was supposed to be! Ann Woltor raked her cheerier memories for the story of a four days' rain- storm which she had experienced once in a very trying visit to her great aunt somebody- or-other on some peculiarly stormbound section of the Welsh coast. George Keet's chivalrous anxiety to set us at our ease was truly
heroic. He even improvised a parody about it: "Rain," observed George Keets, "makes strange umbrella-mates!" A leak had developed during the night it seemed in the ceiling directly over his bed—and George, the finicky, the fastidious, the silk- pajamered— had been obliged to crawl out and seek shelter with Rollins and his flannel night-cap in the next room. And Rollins, it appeared, had not proved a particularly genial host. "By the way, where is Mr. Rollins this morning?" questioned the Bride from her frowning survey of the storm-swept beach. "Mr. Rollins," confided my Husband, "has a slight headache this morning." "Why, that's too bad," sympathized Ann Woltor. "No, it isn't a bad one at all," contradicted my Husband. "Just the very mildest one possible—under the circumstances. It was really very late when he got in again last night. And very wet." From under his casually lowered eyes a single glance of greeting shot out at me. "Now, there you are again!" cried George Keets. "Flirting! You married people! Something that anyone else would turn out as mere information,—'The Ice Man has just left two chunks of ice!' or 'Mr. Rollins has a headache'!—you go and load up with some mysterious and unfathomable significance! Glances pass! Your wife flushes!" "Mysterious?" shrugged my Husband. "Unfathomable? Why it's clear as crystal. The madam says, 'Let there be a headache'—and there is a headache!" As Allan John joined the group at the fireplace everybody began talking weather again. From the chuckle of the birch- logs to the splash on the window-pane the little groups shifted and changed. Everybody seemed to be waiting for something. On the neglected breakfast table even the gay upstanding hemispheres of grapefruit rolled over on their beds of ice to take another nap. In a great flutter of white and laughter the May Girl herself came prancing over the threshold. It wasn't just the fact of being in white that made her look so astonishingly festal; she was almost always in
white. Not yet the fact of laughter. Taken all in all I think she was the most radiantly laughing youngster that I have ever known. But most astonishingly festal she certainly looked, nevertheless. Maybe it was the specially new and chic little twist which she had given her hair. Maybe it was the absurdly coquettish dab of black court-plaster which she had affixed to one dimply cheek. "Oh, if I'm going to be engaged to-day to a real artist," she laughed, "I've certainly got to take some extra pains with my personal appearance. Why, I've hardly slept all night," she confided ingenuously, "I was so excited!" "Yes, won't it be interesting," whispered the Bride to George Keets, "to see what Mr. Kennilworth will really do? He's so awfully temperamental! And so—so inexcusably beautiful. Whatever he does is pretty sure to be interesting. Now up- stairs—all day yesterday— wouldn't it——?" "Yes, wouldn't it be interesting," glowed Ann Woltor quite unexpectedly, "if he'd made her something really wonderful? Something that would last, I mean, after the game was over? Even just a toy, something that would outlast Time itself. Something that even when she was old she could point to and say, 'Claude Kennilworth made that for me when—we were young'." "Why, Ann Woltor!" I stammered. "Do you feel that way about him? Does—does he make you feel that way, too!" "I think—he would make—anyone feel that way—too," intercepted Allan John quite amazingly. In three days surely it was the only voluntary statement he had made, and everybody turned suddenly to stare at him. But it was only too evident from the persistent haggardness of his expression that he had no slightest intention in the world of pursuing his unexpected volubility. "And it isn't just his good looks either!" resumed the Bride as soon as she had recovered from her own astonishment at the interpolation.
"Oh, something, very different," mused Ann Woltor. "The queer little sense he gives you of—of wires humming! Whether you like him or not that queer little sense of 'wires humming' that all really creative people give you! As though—as though—they were being rather specially re-charged all the time from the Main Battery!" "The 'Main Battery,'" puzzled the Bridegroom, "being——?" "Why God,—of course!" said the Bride with a vague sort of surprise. "When women talk mechanics and religion in the same breath," laughed the Bridegroom, "it certainly——" "I was talking neither mechanics nor religion," affirmed the Bride, with the faintest possible tinge of asperity. "Oh, of course, anyone can see," admitted the Bridegroom, "that Kennilworth is a clever chap." "Clever as the deuce!" acquiesced George Keets. With an impatient tap of her foot the May Girl turned suddenly back from the window. "Yes! But where is he?" she laughed. "That's what I say!" cried my Husband. "We've waited quite long enough for him!" "Dallying up-stairs probably to put a dab of black court- plaster on his cheek!" observed George Keets drily. With one accord everybody but the May Girl rushed impulsively to the breakfast table. "Seems as though—somebody ought to wait," dimpled the May Girl. "Oh, nonsense!" asserted everybody. A little bit reluctantly she came at last to her place. Her face was faintly troubled. "On—on an engagement morning," she persisted, "it certainly seems as though—somebody ought to wait."
In the hallway just outside a light step sounded suddenly. It was really astonishing with what an air of real excitement and expectancy everybody glanced up. But the step in the hall proved only the step of a maid. "The young gentleman upstairs sent a message," said the maid. "Most particular he was that I give it exact. 'It being so rainy again,' he says, 'and there not being anything specially interesting on the— the docket as far as he knows, he'll stay in bed—thank you.'" For an instant it seemed as though everybody at the table except Allan John jerked back from his plate with a knife, fork or spoon, brandished half-way in mid air. There was no jerk left in Allan John, I imagine. It was Allan John's color that changed. A dull flush of red where once just gray shadows had lain. "So he'll stay in bed, thank you," repeated the maid sing- songishly. "What?" gasped my Husband. "W-w-what?" stammered the May Girl. "Well—of all the—nerve!" muttered Paul Brenswick. "Why—why how extraordinary," murmured Ann Woltor. "There's your 'artistic temperament' for you, all right!" laughed the Bride a bit hectically. "Peeved is it because he thought Miss Davies ——?" "Don't you think you're just a bit behind the times in your interpretation of the phrase 'artistic temperament'?" interrupted George Keets abruptly. "Except in special neurasthenic cases it is no longer the fashion I believe to lay bad manners to the artistic temperament itself but rather to the humble environment from which most artistic temperaments are supposed to have sprung." "Eh? What's that?" laughed the Bride. Very deliberately George Keets lit a fresh cigarette. "No one person, you know, can have everything," he observed with the thinnest of all his thin-lipped smiles. "Three generations of plowing, isn't it, to raise
one artist? Oh, Mr. Kennilworth's social eccentricities, I assure you, are due infinitely more to the soil than to the soul." "Oh, can your statistics!" implored my Husband a bit sharply, "and pass Miss Davies the sugar!" "And some coffee!" proffered Paul Brenswick. "And this heavenly cereal!" urged the Bride. "Oh, now I remember," winced the May Girl suddenly. "He said 'she'll wait all right'—but, of course, it does seem just a little—wee bit—f- funny! Even if you don't care a—a rap," she struggled heroically through a glint of tears. "Even if you don't care a rap—sometimes it's just a little bit hard to say a word like f-funny!" "Damned hard," agreed my Husband and Paul Brenswick and George Keets all in a single breath. The subsequent conversation fortunately was not limited altogether to expletives. Never, I'm sure, have I entertained a more vivacious not to say hilarious company at breakfast. Nobody seemed contented just to keep dimples in the May Girl's face. Everybody insisted upon giggles. The men indeed treated them selves to what is usually described as "wild guffaws." Personally I think it was a mistake. It brought Rollins down- stairs just as everybody was leaving the table in what had up to that moment been considered perfectly reestablished and invulnerable glee. Everybody, of course, except poor Allan John. No one naturally would expect any kind of glee from Allan John. In the soft pussy-footed flop of his felt slippers none of us heard Rollins coming. But I—I saw him! And such a Rollins! Stripped of the single significant facial expression of his life which I had surprised so unexpectedly in his eyes the night before, Rollins would certainly never be anything but just Rollins! Heavily swathed in his old plaid ulster with a wet towel bound around his brow he loomed cautiously on the scene bearing an empty coffee cup, and from the faintly shadowing delicacy of the parted portieres affirmed with one breath
how astonished he was to find us still at breakfast, while with the next he confided equally fatuously, "I thought I heard merry voices!" It was on Claude Kennilworth's absence, of course, that his maddening little mind fixed itself instantly with unalterable concentration. "What ho! The—engagement?" he demanded abruptly. "There isn't any engagement," said my Husband with a somewhat vicious stab at the fire. From his snug, speculative scrutiny of the storm outside, George Keets swung round with what quite evidently was intended to be a warning frown. "Mr. Kennilworth has—defaulted," he murmured. "Defaulted!" grinned Rollins. Then with perfectly unprecedented perspicacity his roving glance snatched up suddenly the unmistakable tremor of the May Girl's chin. "Oh, what nonsense!" he said. "There are plenty of other eligible men in the party!" "Oh, but you see—there are not!" laughed Paul Brenswick. "Mr. Delville and I are Married—and our wives won't let us." "Oh, nonsense!" grinned Rollins. Once again his roving glance swept the company. Everybody saw what was coming, turned hot, turned cold, shut his eyes, opened them again, but was powerless to avert. "Why, what's the matter with trying Allan John?" grinned Rollins. The thing was inexcusable! Brutal! Blundering! Absolutely doltish beyond even Rollins's established methods of doltishness. But at last when everybody turned inadvertently to scan poor Allan John's face —there was no Allan John to be scanned. Somewhere through a door or a window—somehow between one blink of the eye and another—Allan John had slipped from the room. "Why—why, Mr. Rollins!" gasped everybody all at once. "Whatever in the world were you thinking of?"
"Maybe—maybe—he didn't hear it—after all!" rallied the Bride with the first real ray of hope. "Maybe he just saw it coming," suggested the Bridegroom. "And dodged in the nick of time," said George Keets. "To save not only himself but ourselves," frowned my Husband, "from an almost irretrievable awkwardness. "Why just the minute before it happened," deprecated Ann Woltor, "I was thinking suddenly how much better he looked, how his color had improved,—why his cheeks looked almost red." "Yes, the top of his cheeks," said the May Girl, "were really quite red." Her own cheeks at the moment were distinctly pale. "Where do you suppose he's gone to?" she questioned. "Don't you think that— p'raps—somebody ought to go and find him?" "Oh, for heaven's sake leave him alone!" cried Paul Brenswick. "Leave him alone," acquiesced all the other men. In the moment's nervous reaction and letdown that ensued it was really a relief to hear George Keets cry out, with such poignant amazement from his stand at the window: "Why what in the world is that red-roof out on the rocks?" he cried. In the same impulse both my Husband and myself ran quickly to his side. "Oh, that's all right!" laughed my Husband. "I thought maybe it had blown off or something. Why, that's just the 'Bungalow on the Rocks,'" he explained. "My Husband's study and work-room," I exemplified. "'Forbidden- Ground' is its real name! Nobody is ever allowed to go there without an invitation from—himself!" "Why—but it wasn't there yesterday!" asserted George Keets. "Oh, yes, it was!" laughed my Husband.
"It was not!" said George Keets. The sheer unexpected primitiveness of the contradiction delighted us so that neither of us took the slightest offense. "Oh, I beg your pardon, of course," George Keets recovered himself almost in an instant—"that right here before our eyes—that same vivid scarlet roof was looming there yesterday against the gray rocks and sea—and none of us saw it?" "Saw what?" called Paul Brenswick. "Where?" And came striding to the window. "Gad!" said Paul Brenswick. "Victoria! Come here, quick!" he called. With frank curiosity the Bride joined the group. "Why of all things!" she laughed. "Why it never in the world was there yesterday!" A trifle self-consciously Ann Woltor joined the group. "Bungalow?" she questioned. "A Bungalow out on the rocks." Her face did certainly look just a little bit queer. Anyone who wanted to, was perfectly free of course, to interpret the look as one of incredulity. "No, of course not! Miss Woltor agrees with me perfectly," triumphed George Keets. "It was not there yesterday!" "Oh, but it must have been!" dimpled the May Girl. "If Mr. and Mrs. Delville say so! It's their bungalow!" "It—was—not there—yesterday," puzzled George Keets. More than having his honor at stake he spoke suddenly as though he thought it was his reason that was being threatened. With her cheeks quite rosy again the May Girl began to clap her hands. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. "Oh, I don't care whether it was there yesterday or not!" she triumphed. "It's there to-day! Let's go and explore it! And if it's magic, so much the better! Oh, loo—loo—look!" she cried as a great roar and surge of billows broke on the rocks all around the little red roof and churned the whole sky-line into a chaos of foam. "Oh, come —come!" she besought everybody.
"Oh, but, my dear!" I explained, "How would you get there? No row- boat could live in that sea! And by way of the rocky ledge there's no possible path except at the lowest tide! And besides," I reminded her, "it's named 'Forbidden Ground', you know! No body is supposed to go there without——" With all the impulsiveness of an irresponsible baby the May Girl dashed across the room and threw her arms round my neck. "Why, you old dear," she laughed, "don't you know that that's just the reason why I want to explore it! I want to know why it's 'Forbidden Ground'! Oh, surely—surely," she coaxed, "even if it is a work-room, there couldn't be any real sin in just prying a little?" "No, of course, no real sin," I laughed back at her earnestness. "Just an indiscretion!" Quite abruptly the May Girl relaxed her hug, and narrowed her lovely eyes dreamily to some personal introspection. "I've—never yet—committed a real indiscretion," she confided with apparent regret. "Well, pray don't begin," laughed George Keets in spite of himself, "by trying to explore something that isn't there." "And don't you and Keets," flared Paul Brenswick quite unexpectedly, "by denying the existence of something that is there!" "Well, if it is there to-day," argued George Keets, "it certainly wasn't there yesterday!" "Well, if it wasn't there yesterday, it is at least there to- day!" argued Paul Brenswick. "Rollins! Hi there—Rollins!" they both called as though in a single breath. From his humble seat on the top stair to which he had wisely retreated at his first inkling of having so grossly outraged public opinion, Rollins's reply came wafting some what hopefully back. "H—h—iii," rallied Rollins.
"That red roof on the rocks—" shouted Paul Brenswick. "Was it there—yesterday?" demanded George Keets. "Wait!" cackled Rollins. "Wait till I go look!" A felt footstep thudded. A window opened. The felt footstep thudded again. "No," called Rollins. "Now that I come to think of it— I don't remember having noticed a red roof there yesterday." "Now!" laughed George Keets. "But, oh, I say!" gasped Rollins, in what seemed to be very sudden and altogether indisputable confusion. "Why—why it must have been there! Because that's the shack where we've catalogued the shells every year—for the last seven years!" "Now!" laughed Paul Brenswick. Without another word everybody made a bolt for the hat-rack and the big oak settle, snatched up his or her oil-skin clothes—anybody's oil-skin clothes—and dashed off through the rain to the edge of the cliff to investigate the phenomenon at closer range. Truly the thing was almost too easy to be really righteous! Just a huge rock-colored tarpaulin stripped at will from a red-tiled roof and behold, mystery looms on an otherwise drab-colored day! And a mystery at a houseparty? Well— whoever may stand proven as the mother of invention— Curiosity, you know just as well as I do, is the father of a great many very sprightly little adventures! Within ten minutes from the proscenium box of our big bay- window, my Husband and I could easily discern the absurd little plot and counterplots that were already being hatched. It was the Bride and George Keets who seemed to be thinking, pointing, gesticulating, in the only perfect harmony. Even at this distance, and swathed as they were in hastily adjusted oil-skins, a curiously academic sort of dignity stamped their every movement. Nothing but sheer intellectual determination to prove that their minds were normal would ever tempt either one of them to violate a Host's "No Trespass" sign!
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Youth In Africas Labor Market Marito H Garcia Jean Fares

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  • 5.
    Youth in Africa’sLabor Market Marito Garcia and Jean Fares, Editors D I R E C T I O N S I N D E V E LO P M E N T Human Development
  • 6.
    Youth in Africa’sLabor Market YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page i
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  • 8.
    Youth in Africa’sLabor Market Editors Marito Garcia Jean Fares YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page iii
  • 9.
    © 2008 TheInternational Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street NW Washington, DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000 Internet: www.worldbank.org E-mail: feedback@worldbank.org All rights reserved 1 2 3 4 11 10 09 08 This volume is a product of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The bound- aries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgement on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Rights and Permissions The material in this publication is copyrighted. Copying and/or transmitting portions or all of this work without permission may be a violation of applicable law. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank encourages dissemination of its work and will normally grant permission to reproduce portions of the work promptly. For permission to photocopy or reprint any part of this work, please send a request with complete information to the Copyright Clearance Center Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA; telephone: 978-750-8400; fax: 978-750-4470; Internet: www.copyright.com. All other queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to the Office of the Publisher, The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2422; e-mail: pubrights@worldbank.org. ISBN: 978-0-8213-6884-8 eISBN: 978-0-8213-6885-5 DOI: 10.1596/978-0-8213-6884-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garcia, Marito, 1951- Youth in Africa’s labor market / Marito Garcia and Jean Fares. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Youth—Employment—Africa. 2. Youth—Africa—Social conditions. 3. Labor market— Africa. I. Farès, Jean. II. Title. HD6276.A32G37 2008 331.3′47096—dc22 2007044706 Cover painting: Paul Olaja Cover design: Naylor Design YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page iv
  • 10.
    Foreword xvii Contributors xix Acknowledgmentsxxi Abbreviations xxiii Executive Summary xxv PART 1 Youth in Africa’s Labor Market: A Synthesis 1 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Chapter 1 Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 3 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Why Focus on the Transition to Work? 4 Africa’s Demographic Transition Creates a Window of Opportunity 4 The Level of Educational Attainment Has Risen— and Returns to Education Are Rising in Some Countries 7 Despite Progress, Significant Challenges Remain 8 The Policy Response 11 Notes 14 Contents v YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page v
  • 11.
    Chapter 2 Transitionsto Working Life for Africa’s Youth 15 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Poverty and Large Income Shocks Push Children into the Work Force 18 The School-to-Work Transition of Africa’s Youth Is Long and Difficult 21 Chapter 3 How Do Africa’s Young People Spend Their Time? 27 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Not Many Youth Are in the Labor Market and Employed 27 A Large Proportion of Youth Are “Inactive” 29 Many Young People Are in School 29 Time Use Varies by Income Group 32 Notes 37 Chapter 4 The Effect of Education on Income and Employment 39 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares How Does Education Affect Income? 39 How Does Education Affect Employment? 42 What Effect Does Education Have on Development? 44 What Keeps Educational Attainment Low? 44 Notes 47 Chapter 5 Working in Bad Jobs or Not Working at All 49 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares What Makes the Transition to Work Difficult for Youth? 49 Youth Are Vulnerable in the Labor Market 53 Youth Unemployment Is High 60 Notes 65 vi Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page vi
  • 12.
    Chapter 6 TheThree Pillars of Policy: Lessons from International Experience 67 Marito Garcia and Jean Fares Responses from African Countries 73 Future Research to Fill Knowledge Gaps 75 Annex 6A. Methodology: Building an Indicator of the School-to-Work Transition 75 Annex 6B. Inventory of Selected Policies and Programs on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Burkina Faso 78 Government Involvement in Youth Empolyment Issuses 78 Description of Policies and Programs 79 How Well Have Interventions Performed? 82 Annex 6C. Inventory of Selected Policies and Programs on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Ethiopia 84 Government Involvement in Youth Employment Issues 84 Description of Policies and Programs 85 How Well Have Interventions Performed? 89 Annex 6D. Inventory of Selected Policies and Programs on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Tanzania 91 Government Involvement in Youth Employment Issues 91 Description of Policies and Programs 92 How Well Have Interventions Performed? 95 Annex 6E. Inventory of Selected Policies and Programs on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Uganda 97 Bibliography for Part 1 101 Contents vii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page vii
  • 13.
    PART 2 Youthin Africa’s Labor Market: Country Case Studies 107 Lisa Dragoset, Jean Fares, Lorenzo Guarcello, Florence Kondylis, Scott Lyon, Marco Manacorda, Daniel Parent, Furio Rosati, Cristina Valdivia, and Lars Vilhuber Chapter 7 School-to-Work Transitions: Regional Overview 109 Lorenzo Guarcello, Marco Manacorda, Furio Rosati, Jean Fares, Scott Lyon, and Cristina Valdivia Aggregate Trends 110 Young People’s Time Use 115 Status of Young People in the Labor Market 120 The Transition from School to Work 131 Assessment of the Transition to Working Life 132 Annex 7A.1 141 Notes 144 References 146 Chapter 8 What Determines Labor Market Participation by Youth in Burkina Faso? 149 Daniel Parent Labor Market Indicators 150 Household Income, School Attendance, and Returns to Education 159 Notes 177 References 178 Chapter 9 Child Labor and Youth Employment in Ethiopia 181 Lorenzo Guarcello, Scott Lyon, and Furio Rosati National Context 182 Child Labor 185 Labor Market Status of Young People in Ethiopia 188 Transition to Working Life 196 viii Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page viii
  • 14.
    Child Labor, HumanCapital, and Youth Labor Market Outcomes 200 Policies and Programs for Youth Employment in Ethiopia 211 Conclusions and Policy Recommendations 217 Notes 220 References 222 Chapter 10 Youth in the Labor Market and the Transition from School to Work in Tanzania 225 Florence Kondylis and Marco Manacorda Why Is Unemployment Higher among Youth? 226 Descriptive Evidence 228 Determinants of Labor Force Status among Youth 246 Conclusions and Policy Implications 254 Notes 257 References 258 Chapter 11 How Did Universal Primary Education Affect Returns to Education and Labor Market Participation in Uganda? 263 Lisa Dragoset and Lars Vilhuber Education and Earnings in Uganda 265 The Literature on Educational Participation in Developing Countries 266 The Model 267 Results 268 Concluding Remarks 276 Notes 276 References 277 Index 281 Box 1.1 HIV/AIDS Is Projected to Reduce the Size of the Youth Cohort in Southern Africa 6 Contents ix YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page ix
  • 15.
    Figures 1.1 Africa’s YouthPopulation Is Projected to Grow Faster Than That of Any Other Region in the World 5 1.2 Economic Returns to Secondary Education Are High and Rising Faster Than Educational Attainment in Uganda 8 1.3 Too Many Children Are Working in Many Sub-Saharan African Countries 9 1.4 The Level of Education among Out-of-School Youth in Africa Is Low 9 1.5 The Level of Literacy Varies Widely in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Higher-Income Countries Tending to have Higher Literary Rates 10 1.6 Most African Youth Work in the Informal Sector or Are Self-Employed 10 1.7 Less-Skilled Youth Are Most Vulnerable to Changes in the Supply of and Demand for Labor in Ethiopia 12 2.1 Child Participation in the Labor Force Is High, Particularly among Rural Males in Ethiopia 17 2.2 The Late Age of School Leaving Is Not an Indication of High Educational Attainment in Burkina Faso 23 3.1 Time Use by Income Quintile Varies across Countries 34 3.2 Time Use by Patterns of Young People Vary across Age Groups and Countries 36 4.1 Household Earnings Increase with Educational Attainment in Burkina Faso 41 4.2 More Education Does Not Always Reduce the Rate of Unemployment among Youth 43 5.1 Most Youth Perform Unpaid Family Work, Predominantly in Agriculture in Ethiopia 59 5.2 Unemployment Is Higher among Youth Than Adults in Almost All Sub-Saharan African Countries 61 5.3 Many Urban Youth Remain Unemployed for More Than a Year in Ethiopia 62 5.4 Unemployment Spells Last Much Longer in Urban Than in Rural Areas in Tanzania 63 5.5 Young Females Are More Likely Than Young Males to Be Neither Working Nor Attending School 63 7.1 Regional Unemployment Rates, 2003 112 7.2 Average Years of Schooling, by Region and Year 113 7.3 Educational Attainment of Nonstudent Youth, Sub-Saharan Africa Region 114 x Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page x
  • 16.
    7.4 Unemployment Ratefor Youth by Educational Attainment in Sub-Saharan African Countries 115 7.5 Changes in the Time Use Patterns of Young People by Age and Country 121 7.6 Unemployment Ratios for Young People Ages 15–24, by Sex, Residence, School Attendance, and Country 125 7.7 Youth versus Adult Unemployment 129 7.8 Ratio of Youth to Adult Unemployment Rates, Sub-Saharan African Countries and OECD Countries 130 7.9 Length and Timing of Transition from School to Work for Children Ever Attending School by Sex, Residence, and Country 135 7.10 School Enrollment by Age and School Attendance in Burkina Faso 136 7.11 Correlation Between Transition Duration and Selected Macroeconomic and Demographic Factors 138 7.12 The Proportion of Children Ages 8–12 Who Are Economically Active 140 7.13 Age at First Job for Children Never Attending School, by Country 140 9.1 Ethiopia’s Labor Force Tripled between 1960 and 2002 184 9.2 Gross Primary School Enrollment in Ethiopia More Than Doubled between 1995 and 2003 185 9.3 Rural Residents and Boys in Ethiopia Are More Likely to Work as Children Than Urban Residents and Girls 186 9.4 The Unemployment Ratio and Rate of Joblessness among 15- to 24-Years-Olds in Ethiopia Are About Average for Sub-Saharan Africa 190 9.5 Youth Unemployment Ratios in Ethiopia Are Much Higher in Urban Than in Rural Areas 191 9.6 Urban Workers in Ethiopia Work Many More Hours per Week Than Rural Workers 191 9.7 The Duration of Urban Unemployment in Ethiopia Is a Cause for Concern 192 9.8 Youth Have Weaker Labor Indicators Than Adults in Ethiopia, but Unemployment among Both Groups Is Low 195 9.9 The Unemployment Ratio among Ethiopian Adults of All Ages Is Higher in Urban Than in Rural Areas 196 9.10 Ethiopian Youth Begin the Transition from School to Work Later Than Youth in Other Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa 197 Contents xi YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xi
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    9.11 Ethiopian ChildrenWho Start School Tend to Remain in School through Their Teens 199 9.12 Gender and Location Affect the Duration and Timing of the Transition from School to Work in Ethiopia 199 9.13 Ethiopian Children Begin Work Much Earlier Than Children in Other Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa 200 9.14 Employment Rates among Ethiopians Ages 20–24 Decrease with Education, and Unemployment Rates Increase 201 9.15 The Higher Their Level of Education, the More Likely Ethiopians Ages 20–24 Are to Work in Wage Employment 204 11.1 Income Rises with Level of Education in Uganda 265 Tables 2.1 Age of First Job and Percentage of Children Working in Selected Countries 16 2.2 Type and Sector of Employment of Child Workers by Age Group, Gender, and Urban-Rural Location in Ethiopia 19 2.3 Effect of Poverty and Household Income Shocks on Labor Force Participation of Urban Dwellers Ages 12–14 in Burkina Faso 20 2.4 Duration of the School-to-Work Transition in Selected Countries 22 2.5 Length and Timing of Transition from School to Work by Gender, Residence, and Country 24 3.1 Time Use among Male and Female Youth in Selected Countries 31 3.2 Time Use among Rural and Urban Youth in Selected Countries 33 3.3 Time Use among Teenagers and Young Adults in Selected Countries 35 4.1 Effect of Primary and Secondary Education on Wages, by Age Group, 1992 and 1999, in Uganda 42 4.2 Determinants of Schooling for Urban and Rural Youth by Gender in Tanzania 46 5.1 Determinants of Urban and Rural Youth Unemployment in Tanzania 50 xii Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xii
  • 18.
    5.2 Determinants ofUrban and Rural Youth Inactivity in Tanzania 51 5.3 Employment Response to Demographic and Economic Shocks for Females by Location and Education in Ethiopia 51 5.4 Response of Youth Employment to Demographic and Economic Shocks for Females by Level of Education and Urban-Rural Location in Ethiopia 54 5.5 Modality of Employment by Youth and Adults in Selected Countries 55 5.6 Modality of Employment of Rural and Urban Youth, in Selected Countries 57 5.7 Employment Modality by Gender, Age Group, and Urban- Rural Location in Tanzania 58 5.8 Multiple Job Holding and Underemployment by Gender, Age, and Urban-Rural Location in Burkina Faso 60 5.9 Reported Reasons for Inactivity among Male Youth in Tanzania 64 6.1 Promising Interventions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda 74 6B.1 Selected Employment-Related Programs by Category, Location, and Age Group Served in Burkina Faso 80 6B.2 Quality of Employment-Related Interventions in Burkina Faso 83 6B.3 Quality of Evaluations of Employment-Related Interventions in Burkina Faso 84 6C.1 Selected Employment-Related Programs by Category, Location, and Age of Group Served in Ethiopia 86 6C.2 Quality of Employment-Related Interventions in Ethiopia 89 6C.3 Quality of Evaluations of Employment-Related Programs in Ethiopia 90 6D.1 Selected Employment-Related Programs by Category, Location, and Age Group Served in Tanzania 93 6D.2 Quality of Employment-Related Interventions in Tanzania 95 6D.3 Quality of Evaluations of Employment-Related Programs in Tanzania 97 7.1 Time Use Patterns for Youth Ages 15–24, by Country 116 7.2 Time Use Patterns for Youth Ages 15–24, by Sex and Country 117 7.3 Time Use Patterns for Youth Ages 15–24, by Residence and Country 118 Contents xiii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xiii
  • 19.
    7.4 Time UsePatterns for Youth, by Age Group and Country 119 7.5 Youth Unemployment, Inactivity, and Jobless Indicators, by Age Group and Country 124 7.6 Employment Characteristics for the 15–24 Year-Old Age Group, by Country 128 7.7 Youth versus Adult Employment Characteristics by Country 131 7.8 School-to-Work Transition Points by Residence and Country 133 8.1 School and Work Status of Females and Males in Burkina Faso, by Age, 1993–2003 151 8.2 Employment and Unemployment Rates among Burkinabes Not Enrolled in School, by Age and Gender, 1993–2003 152 8.3 Employment and Unemployment Rates in Burkina Faso, by Age, Gender, and Education, 1993–2003 154 8.4 Employment and Unemployment Rates in Urban and Rural Areas of Burkina Faso, 1993–2003 156 8.5 Percentage of Burkinabes Underemployed or Holding More Than One Job, 2003 158 8.6 Percentage of Burkinabes Holding More Than One Job, by Household Income Quintile, 2003 159 8.7 Household Income Shocks and Labor Force Participation in Burkina Faso, 2003 160 8.8 Changes in Household’s Economic Conditions and Labor Force Participation 163 8.9 School Enrollment Probits for Burkina Faso, 1993–2003 168 8.10 Rate of Return to Schooling in Burkina Faso, 2003 173 8.11 Instrumental Variables Estimates of Rate of Return to Schooling 175 8.12 Panel Data IV Estimates 176 9.1 Macroeconomic Indicators for Ethiopia, 1982–2001 183 9.2 Work and School Activity of Ethiopian Children, by Age, Gender, and Urban-Rural Location 187 9.3 Youth Unemployment, Inactivity, and Joblessness Indicators in Ethiopia, by Age Group, Gender, and Urban-Rural Location 189 9.4 Work Modality, Sector of Employment, and Average Weekly Hours of Employed Ethiopian Youth 193 xiv Contents YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xiv
  • 20.
    Contents xv 9.5 Ratioof Youth to Adult Unemployment Rates in Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries 195 9.6 School-to-Work Transition Points in Ethiopia, by Gender and Urban-Rural Location 198 9.7 Employment Status and Employment Modality of Ethiopians Not in School, by Educational Attainment and Age Group 203 9.8 Probability of Employment among Ethiopians Ages 10–24: Probit Estimates Using Regionwide Definition of Local Labor Market 206 9.9 Probability of Employment among Rural and Urban Ethiopians Ages 10–24, by Level of Education: Probit Estimates Obtained Using Indicators of Local Labor Market Separated for Rural and Urban Areas 208 10.1 Labor Force and Schooling Status in Tanzania, 2000/01 229 10.2 Nature of Employment in Tanzania, 2000/01 233 10.3 Activity and Unemployment Status in Tanzania, 2000/01 238 10.4 Reasons Why Tanzanians Are Not Looking for or Are Not Available for Work 242 10.5 Job Search Methods in Tanzania 245 10.6 Determinants of Labor Force Status and Schooling Choices of Youth in Tanzania 248 11.1 A Large Proportion of Uganda’s Labor Force Works Outside the Formal Sector 266 11.2 The Percentage of Ugandans with Some Secondary Education Rose between 1992 and 2002 270 11.3 The Free Primary Education Policy Has Freed Household Resources, Allowing Families to Keep Children in School Longer 271 11.4 The Average Educational Level of Household Heads in Uganda Rose between 1992 and 2002 272 11.5 Educational Levels Increased in Both Rural and Urban Areas 273 11.6 Employment Rose between 1992 and 1999, Particularly among Young Women 275 YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xv
  • 21.
  • 22.
    Foreword xvii About 200 millionpeople between the ages of 12 and 24 live in Africa today, and their share of the population is rising. By 2010 youth will account for 28 percent of the population, making Sub-Saharan Africa the “youngest” region in the world. This largest-ever youth cohort means that the time has never been more urgent to invest in young people in Africa. With good policies and institutions in place, the potential to reap a divi- dend from a larger, younger work force with fewer dependents is great. This book examines the challenges African youth face in their transi- tion to work and presents a strategy for meeting these challenges. It argues that African youth start working too early and are unprepared to meet the demands of the labor market. Leaving school early—or not entering at all—limits their human capital accumulation and restricts their upward mobility, with grave implications for both individuals and national economies. Labor is the most abundant asset of poor households in Africa. Developing this asset is therefore essential to helping households move out of poverty. Strengthening the work force can also improve the investment climate, increase economic growth, and prevent instability and violence, particularly in postconflict situations, where large numbers of unemployed youth threaten security. This book describes how Africa’s young people spend their time and presents a case for investing in youth in Africa, analyzing the two paths to working life for Africa’s youth: directly (without the benefit of edu- cation) and through school. It also presents new evidence on the effects of education on employment and income in selected countries, and xvii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xvii
  • 23.
    examines youth unemploymentand its determinants. The case studies conducted in selected African countries analyze policies and programs implemented on youth employment and suggest a policy framework to help African youth successfully transition to working life. Robert Holzmann Yaw Ansu Director, Social Protection Director, Human Development Human Development Network Department The World Bank Africa Region The World Bank xviii Foreword YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xviii
  • 24.
    Lisa Dragoset isan economist at Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, United States. Jean Fares is a senior economist at the World Bank’s Human Development Network. Marito Garcia is a lead economist at theWorld Bank’s Human Development Department, Africa Region. Lorenzo Guarcello is a researcher with the Understanding Children’s Work project—a joint World Bank, ILO, and UNICEF project. Florence Kondylis is an economist in the Department of Economics, QMUL and CEP–London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Scott Lyon is a researcher with the Understanding Children’s Work project—a joint World Bank, ILO, and UNICEF project. Marco Manacorda is a professor at the Department of Economics, RHUL and CEP–London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Daniel Parent is a professor of Economics at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Furio Rosati is the Director of Understanding Children’s Work project— a joint World Bank, ILO, and UNICEF project. Cristina Valdivia is a researcher with Understanding Children’s Work project—a joint World Bank, ILO, and UNICEF project. Lars Vilhuber is a research fellow at the Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, United States. Contributors xix YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xix
  • 25.
  • 26.
    This report isa collaborative effort of the Africa Human Development Technical Department, the Social Protection Team of the Human Development Network, and the Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda Country Teams of the World Bank. The report was prepared by a team led by Marito Garcia (Team Leader) and Jean Fares (Co-Task Team Leader). Contributions were made by the study team consultants: Lisa Dragoset, Martha Getachew, Martin Godfrey, Lorenzo Guarcello, Emily Kallaur, Florence Kondylis, Marco Manacorda, Anthony Okech, Barthelemy Ouedraogo, Daniel Parent, Furio Rosati, Joseph Shitundu, Ruth Uwaifo, Lars Vilhuber, and Gillian Virata. Moukim Temorov (Burkina Faso Country Team), Emily Kallaur and Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi (Ethiopia Country Team), Rest Lasway and Robert Utz (Tanzania Country Team), and Suleiman Namara and Mirey Ovadiya (Uganda Country Team) also contributed to the report. The report was prepared under the general guidance of Laura Frigenti (Sector Manager); Yaw Ansu (Sector Director); and Robert Holzmann (Sector Director). Peer reviewers were Emmanuel Jimenez, Linda McGinnis, and Wendy Cunningham. The participants of the one-day workshop on youth in Africa’s labor market held in Washington, D.C., provided valuable guidance to the study team and commented on initial drafts of the country case studies. The team is particularly grateful to Emmanuel Jimenez, Robert Holzmann, M. Louise Fox, Setareh Razmara, Stefano Scarpetta, Pia Peeters, Harold Alderman, Viviana Mangiaterra, Linda McGinnis, Maurizia Tovo, Wendy Cunningham, Daniel Kwabena Boakye, members Acknowledgments xxi YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxi
  • 27.
    of the AfricaLabor Market Analysis Thematic Group, the Children and Youth Thematic Group, and Laura Brewer (International Labour Organization Geneva). The country case studies were funded partly by the Trust Fund of the ESSD-Social Protection Window.This support is gratefully acknowledged. xxii Acknowledgments YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxii
  • 28.
    AGETIP Agence d’Exécutiondes Travaux d’Intérêt Public BEUPA Basic Education in Urban Poverty Areas BOLSA Bureau for Labour and Social Affairs (Ethiopia) COBET Complementary Basic Education in Tanzania ESDPIII Education Sector Development Plan III GDP gross domestic product GTZ German Agency for Technical Cooperation HIV/AIDS human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome ILFS Integrated Labor Force Survey ILO International Labour Organization LICUS low-income countries under stress MDGs Millennium Development Goals MOLSA Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Ethiopia) NGOs nongovernmental organizations PEAP Poverty Eradication Action Plan PEVDT Promotion of Employment-Oriented Vocational and Technical Training ReMSEDA Regional Micro and Small Enterprises Development Agencies SFSI Standard Files Standard Indicators Database SHLS Survey of Household Living Conditions Abbreviations xxiii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxiii
  • 29.
    TVET technical andvocational education and training UCW Understanding Children’s Work UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund VETA Vocational Education and Training Authority, Tanzania xxiv Abbreviations YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxiv
  • 30.
    Youth and Africahave received increased attention in recent policy discussions and World Bank work, as articulated in the Africa Action Plan and the World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next Generation. The Africa Action Plan offers a framework to support critical policy and public action led by African countries to achieve well-defined goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The World Development Report’s main message is that the time has never been better to invest in young people living in developing countries. It offers a three- pillar policy framework for investing in and preserving the human capital of the next generation. Both frameworks respond to the desire to find solutions to Africa’s development challenges and to prepare for and benefit from the next generation of workers, parents, and leaders. This report examines the challenges Africa’s youth face in their tran- sition to working life and proposes policies for meeting these challenges. It presents evidence from case studies of 4 countries—Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda—and from household data on 13 coun- tries. The four case studies include a stocktaking of existing policies and programs to address youth employment and labor markets. The overarching message of the report is the call to further invest in the human capital of youth in Sub-Saharan Africa to take advantage of the large youth cohorts there. Youth in Africa leave school too early and enter the labor market unprepared, limiting their contribution to economic growth and increasing their vulnerability to poverty and economic hardship. Executive Summary xxv YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxv
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    Why Focus ontheTransition toWork forYouth in Africa? Youth undergo several transitions between the ages of 12 and 24. During this period, some young people move from primary to secondary educa- tion. Others leave school and start to work. Decisions made during this period affect young people’s acquisition of human capital. These decisions have enormous consequences for their future prospects, as well as those of their communities. The difficulties youth encounter in entering the work force and devel- oping the skills needed to ensure gainful and productive employment can have profound effects on countries’ investment climates and prospects for growth. An educated and healthy work force provides incentives for investment; unskilled and disillusioned youth make returns to investment low and uncertain. For this reason, national gov- ernments and regional bodies have placed this issue squarely on their policy agenda for this decade. Africa’sWindow of Opportunity The demographic transition in Sub-Saharan Africa makes youth the most abundant asset the region has or will have in the near future.About 200 million young people between the ages of 12 and 24 live in Africa today; unlike in the rest of the developing world, the share of youth in the population will continue to rise in Africa. Since the 1950s the youth population in Sub-Saharan Africa has more than quadrupled (UN 2005). This rapid rate of growth has pushed the absolute size of the youth pop- ulation in Sub-Saharan Africa beyond that of many other regions. By 2010 youth will represent about 28 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population, making it the “youngest” region in the world. By 2030 Africa is projected to have as many youth as East Asia and by 2050 could also exceed the youth population in South Asia. This largest-ever youth cohort is more educated and healthier than previous cohorts. Other regions that have seen such an important demo- graphic transition (such as East Asia and Latin America) have had mixed records dealing with it. East Asia, which put the right policies and institutions in place, was able to reap the demographic dividend from a large work force with fewer dependents. In fact, some observers have suggested that up to a third of the Asian miracle growth is attributable to this demographic dividend. In Latin America similar demographic dynamics did not yield better development outcomes. xxvi Executive Summary YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxvi
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    This opportunity nodoubt involves risks. Africa’s youth cohort today faces new challenges, such as HIV/AIDS and global competition. Changes in economic conditions and global forces have increased competition and demand for higher skills, increasing the returns to education, particularly higher levels of education, in countries that are growing. Youth Face Several Challenges inTheirTransition toWork Africa’s youth follow two paths in their transitions to working life. Some go to work directly, with little benefit of formal schooling. Others join the work force after a time in the formal school system. Many young people enter the labor market unprepared, making them more vulnerable to demographic and demand changes affecting the labor market. Few youth earn wages and many work in the informal sector. In rural areas most young people are in unpaid family work, are underem- ployed, or both. In urban areas many young people are unemployed, some of them for long time periods. Those who work are more likely than adults to be stuck in low-productivity jobs. The low-skilled are most vulnerable to weakening demand. Young women have difficulty participating in the labor force. They become discouraged workers and engage in nonmarket activities. African Youth Enter the Labor Market too Early and too Unprepared Early entry into the labor market limits Africans from accumulating the human capital they need to get good jobs. The difficulties they face finding work or participating in the labor force mean that the benefits of earlier investments are not fully realized. Safeguarding and building on these investments will greatly increase the likelihood that Africa benefits from its youth bulge. It will reduce the threat to its security and future development. And because labor is the most abundant asset of the poor, making labor more productive will help move Africans out of poverty. A substantial proportion of young people in most Sub-Saharan African countries never enter school, moving directly into the labor force. In fact, the incidence of child labor in Sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world. In 29 African countries for which data are avail- able, an average of 35 percent of children under the age of 15 work. Exposure to the job market in childhood or early adolescence can have a strong negative impact on future labor market experience and earning Executive Summary xxvii YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxvii
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    potential. Today’s childlaborers will represent the weakest part of tomorrow’s adult labor force. African youth enter the labor market lacking skills. Illiteracy among 15- to 24-year-olds is alarmingly high; in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Mozambique more than 75 percent of out-of-school youth have no education at all. Despite enormous improvements in education over the past decade, the primary completion rate in the region—59 percent— remains the lowest in the world.This education gap remains a major hin- drance for Africa’s youth as they transition into working life. Africans who do transition from school to work experience very long periods of inactivity, implying significant labor market entry problems. In 8 of the 13 countries reviewed (Cameroon, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, São Tomé and Principe, and Zambia), young people face about five years of inactivity before finding work; youth in Uganda are inactive for more than three years on average. The transition duration is just one year in Côte d’Ivoire and almost seven years in Mozambique, suggesting that vulnerability to unsuccessful tran- sition varies greatly across countries. Male youth stay in school longer and attain higher education levels than females. They start the transition to work later than females in both urban areas (except in Kenya) and rural areas (except in Kenya and Uganda). Urban youth start working later and have higher education attainment than rural youth. Youth Are Most Vulnerable to Demographic and Macroeconomic Conditions By the age of 24, most Africans have left school and started to work. The proportion of youth at work versus those still in school ranges widely across countries: in Kenya and Malawi, more than 40 percent of youth remain in school, and more youth are in school than at work, while in Burkina Faso and Burundi, more than 70 percent of youth work. Transition to work is often difficult because of the lack of strong employ- ment creation in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and because of several youth-specific factors. These factors include the growing numbers of new entrants into the labor force, market and policy failures that disproportionately affect youth, and the lack of skills required to match the changing nature of labor demand as a result of globalization and technological changes. Increases in the relative size of the youth cohort and the number of new entrants into the work force hurt the employment prospects of youth. Cross-country analysis shows that a 1 percent increase in the share of youth xxviii Executive Summary YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxviii
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    in the populationincreases youth unemployment by 0.5 percentage points. Evidence from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Tanzania confirms this link. A close investigation of the labor market for youth also reveals impor- tant market segmentation by urban and rural residence or gender, a result of market and policy failures reducing youth flows between different segments of the labor market. Evidence from Ethiopia documents how employment among low-skilled youth is more vulnerable to economic shocks and demographic changes. In Burkina Faso those who start to work with little or no education are unlikely to move to better occupa- tions years after entry. The Policy Response: Broaden Employment Opportunities, EnhanceYouth Capabilities, and OfferYouth Second Chances Applying the World Development Report 2007 framework to Africa requires increasing employment opportunities for youth in order to safe- guard and further develop their skills, providing youth with the capability to choose among opportunities by equipping them with the right skills and improving their access to information and credit, and giving them second chances, so that no one is left behind. Broadening Opportunities for Employment Economic growth is key to broadening opportunities. It increases employ- ment for everyone—and has a disproportionately large effect on youth. The recent economic expansion in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa will have positive effects on youth. In Ethiopia the evidence shows that youth employment responds positively to increased demand for labor, partly offsetting the pressure of a large cohort of new entrants. A good investment climate—which lets the private sector expand and helps trade flourish—will support economic expansion. These general policies are necessary to promote youth employment opportunities, but they are not sufficient. Youth would also benefit from policies that mitigate the market and policy failures responsible for labor market rigidity and seg- mentation, particularly along the skills and urban-rural dimensions. Increasing Youth’s Capabilities Youth need to be prepared to take advantage of potential opportunities and to create opportunities on their own though self-employment and entrepreneurial activities. Preparation for employment starts with basic good-quality education, which provides the foundation for future human Executive Summary xxix YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxix
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    capital accumulation andthe later acquisition of vocational skills in schools, training institutes, and the workplace (World Bank 2006). In general, higher levels of education are associated with an easier transition to work. But for youth in Africa, education does not always reduce unemployment; in some countries the unemployment rate among educated youth is very high. Over time, however, as youth gain work experience, higher levels of education increase the employment inci- dence and enhance occupational mobility. In Tanzania, after controlling for experience, the incidence of employment among urban men with the highest level of education is about 26 percentage points higher than that of men with no education. In Burkina Faso the initial occupations of youth vary little with education levels, but young people with higher lev- els of education are more likely to move to better occupations over time. In Burkina Faso and Tanzania, school enrollment is negatively affected by adverse income shocks to households, the low education of the household head, and difficulty in access to education, measured by distance to school. Because poor households are more likely to be income-constrained, when faced with negative income shocks, they are more likely to take their children out of school and send them to work. Other households may not realize the incentives for investing in educa- tion, partly because parents with low educational attainment tend to understate the benefits of children’s schooling. Providing a Second Chance Poverty, adverse economic conditions, ill health, employment shocks, and inadequate schools force many young people to leave school, bring- ing early investment to a halt and frustrating their efforts to prepare for work and develop their livelihoods. In Africa, an estimated 95 million young men and women with no education are either unemployed, in low-paying jobs, or totally withdrawn from the labor force. These youth need a second chance. Policy makers are concerned about the difficulties African youth are facing in their transition to work and their need for a second chance. They recognize the consequences for the future development of youth as well as for the development of the economies in which they live. Despite this recognition, the response to the problem has been fragmented, confined to limited interventions.The review of interventions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda shows that most second-chance interventions are small in scale, unevaluated, and face severe challenges for sustainability and scalability. xxx Executive Summary YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxx
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    TheWay Forward Youth areone of Africa’s most abundant assets. Only by safeguarding early investments and further developing this resource will the region be able to reap the benefit of its unprecedented demographic transition. This window of opportunity is wide open for policies that ensure that countries can move forward to achieve more rapid growth and poverty reduction. Failing to do so will be costly for this generation and for future generations. This report offers some guidance to policy makers searching for solu- tions to address youth employment issues. The approach is based on a policy framework that encompasses the complexity of youth issues and incorporates lessons from international experience. The analyses and the surveys of interventions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda ground the proposed framework in these countries’ realities and provide the background for further empirical examination. The report lays the foundation for mainstreaming youth employment within the World Bank’s operations and supporting the policy dialogue with countries. Executive Summary xxxi YALM_i-xxxii 3/13/08 6:23 PM Page xxxi
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    PA R T1 Youth in Africa’s Labor Market: A Synthesis Marito Garcia and Jean Fares YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 1
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    Youth are themost abundant asset Sub-Saharan Africa has—or will have in the near future—because of the demographic transition in the region. About 200 million young people between the ages of 12 and 24 live in Africa today, and their number is growing. Investing in youth will greatly increase the likelihood that Africa will benefit from its youth bulge, and it will reduce the threat to its security and future development. Because labor is the most abundant asset of the poor, improving labor’s produc- tivity is the best way to reduce poverty. Investment in children’s education and health has increased primary enrollment and reduced health risks in several countries in the region. But African youth still enter the labor market early and unprepared, limiting their human capital accumulation and upward mobility. The difficulties of finding work can limit the benefits of investments in their education. Economic growth and overall employment creation are necessary to improve employment outcomes for youth as well, but these conditions are not sufficient. Policy makers need to ensure that youth can take full advantage of the opportunities that growth presents and to minimize policy and market failures that affect youth disproportionately. Policies are needed to help young people develop skills and to increase their access to information and credit so that they are able to make better C H A P T E R 1 Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? Marito Garcia and Jean Fares 3 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 3
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    choices among availableopportunities. The most vulnerable young people should be granted second-chance opportunities to ensure that no one is left behind. Why Focus on theTransition toWork? Youth undergo several transitions between the ages of 12 and 24. During this period some young people move from primary to secondary educa- tion. Others leave school and start to work. Decisions made during this period affect young people’s human capital and future prospects, as well as the development of the communities and regions where they live. One of the most important decisions youth make is when to leave school. Those who leave too early enter the labor market unprepared. They are more vulnerable to shocks, less likely to find work, and more likely to get stuck in low-quality jobs, with few opportunities to develop their human capital and move to better employment. Because labor is the most abundant asset of poor households in Africa, ensuring its proper development when youth are most able to learn and develop is essential to helping families move out of poverty. The difficulties youth encounter entering the work force and developing the skills needed to ensure gainful and productive employment can have profound effects on countries’ investment climates and growth prospects. For this reason, national governments and regional bodies have placed this issue prominently on their policy agenda for this decade. Africa’s DemographicTransition Creates aWindow of Opportunity The developing world today has the largest youth cohort ever—1.2 billion people between the ages of 12 and 24. According to most global popula- tion projections, the world will not see a cohort this large again in the foreseeable future (World Bank 2006). Unlike in the rest of the developing world, the share of youth in the pop- ulation will continue to rise in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the 1950s the youth population in Sub-Saharan Africa has more than quadrupled (figure 1.1; UN 2005).The share of youth in the population in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to increase to about 28 percent in 2010, higher than in any other region in the world. By 2035 Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to have as many youth as East Asia, and by 2050 could also exceed South Asia.1 Demographic factors—such as changes in fertility and mortality rates—are key to understanding the processes underlying the increase in 4 Garcia and Fares YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 4
  • 42.
    Why Is ItImportant for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 5 the size of the youth cohort. In some countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya, where fertility rates are high and late to decline, the youth population is projected to continue to increase rapidly over the next several decades. Other countries, such as Senegal, are projected to experience slower growth, with the youth population lev- eling off shortly after 2030 (Lam 2006). These projections are subject to constant revisions and are affected by several shocks, including the prevalence of HIV/AIDS (box 1.1). Everything else equal, a large cohort reduces labor market opportunities for youth. In Europe and the United States, which experienced large demographic shifts after World War II, wages and employment for youth fell as the relative size of the youth cohort grew (Freeman 1979; Korenman and Neumark 2000). Evidence from a large set of developing countries suggests that the estimated elasticity of youth unemployment to the relative youth cohort size is about 0.5 (O’Higgins 2003).This means that a 1 percent increase in the cohort size increases youth unemployment by 0.5 percentage points. Microanalysis from household surveys in Ethiopia and Tanzania indicates that the increase in the youth share in the local labor market leads to a significant decline in the youth employ- ment rate (see chapter 5). A large youth cohort also presents an opportunity for the region, however. The rapid rise in the ratio of the working to the nonworking populations in East Asia between 1965 and 1990 may have played an important role in driving the East Asian “economic miracle” (Bloom and Williamson 1998). Since Sub-Saharan Africa will be faced with similar Figure 1.1. Africa’sYouth Population Is Projected to Grow FasterThanThat of Any Other Region in theWorld Source: UN (2005). 0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 300,000 350,000 400,000 450,000 500,000 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 population 12–24 (in thousands) Sub-Saharan Africa Middle East and North Africa South Asia Europe and Central Asia East Asia and Pacific Latin America and Caribbean YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 5
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    6 Garcia andFares Box 1.1 HIV/AIDS Is Projected to Reduce the Size of the Youth Cohort in Southern Africa The population projections of the UN Population Division include projections about AIDS mortality and the potential impact of antiretroviral treatment. They incorporate the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) model used to project the course of the epidemic in the 60 countries with the highest HIV prevalence (UNAIDS 2002). A second set of hypothetical projections is made based on the assumption that there is no AIDS mortality. Comparison of the two sets of projections indicates that AIDS mortality has a substantial impact on the size of the youth population in Botswana, South Africa, and Zambia. There is little difference in the two projections in 2000, but by 2010 the projections begin to diverge. In Botswana, for example, the youth population is projected to peak around 2005 under the medium-variant projection; under the “no AIDS” projection, it would have continued increasing for several more decades. In Zambia AIDS is projected to reduce the size of the youth population by about 15 percent by 2015. AIDS Is Expected to Reduce the Size of theYouth Cohort in Botswana, South Africa, and Zambia Source: Lam 2006. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 Zambia - No AIDS Zambia - AIDS Botswana - No AIDS Botswana - AIDS South Africa - No AIDS South Africa - AIDS population (1980=100) YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 6
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    demographic dynamics, settingmacroeconomic and labor market policies that will help it reap this demographic dividend is essential. The Level of Educational Attainment Has Risen—and Returns to Education Are Rising in Some Countries The average years of educational attainment in Sub-Saharan Africa doubled between 1960 and 2000 (Barro and Lee 2000). Although Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest primary completion rate of any region, at only 59 per- cent in 2003, enormous progress is being made. According to the 2005 Global Monitoring Report, since 1990, 8 of the developing world’s 10 top performers in annual increases in primary completion rates have been in Africa (Benin, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, São Tomé and Principe,Togo, and Malawi). Primary completion rates in these countries have grown by more than 5 percent a year, well above the low-income country average of 0.8 percent a year. All of these countries, which started from a very low base, have enjoyed dramatic growth in enrollment: Ethiopia’s primary gross enrollment rate, for example, doubled in just 10 years, from 37 percent in 1995 to about 74 percent in 2005. These improvement rates far exceed anything achieved by today’s developed countries at a similar stage of development (World Bank 2005). The larger cohorts of primary school finishers are increasing the pressure on secondary school enrollment. Between 1990 and 2003, the increase in the cohort size and the primary completion rate was reflected by an increase of more than 160 percent in the number of primary school graduates in Sub-Saharan Africa, adding significant pressure at higher levels of education (World Bank 2006). In Uganda the share of youth that completed primary school increased while the share of those without primary education shrank between 1992 and 2002; the share of youth with some secondary education almost doubled. With this increase, the economic returns to secondary education rose, reflecting the significant demand for higher skills in the workplace (figure 1.2). In 1999 males in Uganda with primary educa- tion earned 30 percent more and males with secondary education earned 140 percent more than those who did not complete primary school. For females the returns were even greater: females with primary education earned 49 percent more and females with secondary educa- tion earned 150 percent more than those who did not complete primary school (Vilhuber 2006). These figures indicate large increases over the already high returns to education estimated with data from 1992. Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 7 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 7
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    Despite Progress, SignificantChallenges Remain Despite considerable progress in the region, youth continue to face chal- lenges in successfully transitioning to work, including high involvement in child labor, low educational attainment, predominantly informal employ- ment opportunities, low human capital investment outside of school, high illiteracy rates, and other barriers. • Child labor. The incidence of child labor in Sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world. In 29 African countries for which data are avail- able, an average of 35 percent of children under the age of 15 work outside the home (figure 1.3).These estimates are likely to understate child labor because of the difficulties of capturing various activities children undertake outside the market and because of the short spells of work that may be missed by surveys. The variation across countries in the region is significant, with extremely high levels of child labor in Sierra Leone and Togo. • Low educational attainment. As a result of early entry into the work force, the out-of-school population has very low educational attainment in most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (figure 1.4). In Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, more than 75 percent of out-of-school youth have no education at all. In almost all countries in the region, a majority of out-of-school youth did not finish primary school. 8 Garcia and Fares Figure 1.2. Economic Returns to Secondary Education Are High and Rising Faster Than Educational Attainment in Uganda Source: 1999 Uganda National Household Survey data; see chapter 11. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 m a l e , 1 9 9 2 m a l e , 1 9 9 9 f e m a l e , 1 9 9 2 f e m a l e , 1 9 9 9 relative returns (reference less than primary, %) primary secondary did not complete primary completed primary some secondary 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 1992 educational attainment (%) 1999 2002 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 8
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    Educational attainment figurestell only part of the story, because they fail to capture the low quality of education. In several countries less than half of women 15–24 with some primary schooling can read a simple sentence. In Namibia more than 80 percent of children finish primary school, but less than 20 percent master the material covered. (See figure 1.5.) • Predominantly informal employment creation. The incidence of self- employment among youth is high (figure 1.6). In some countries, including Burundi, The Gambia, and Zambia, almost all rural youth Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 9 Figure 1.3.Too Many Children AreWorking in Many Sub-Saharan African Countries Source: Fares and Raju 2006. Figure 1.4.The Level of Education among Out-of-SchoolYouth in Africa Is Low 81.9 46.6 26.2 56.6 80.4 65.1 7.7 0.9 18.5 76.3 5.6 21.4 13.1 11.5 43.1 44 21.1 9.6 9.1 36.8 61.1 16.7 12 48.6 30.8 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 percent 80 90 100 S ã o T o m é a n d P r i n c i p e U g a n d a Z a m b i a 50.9 B u r k i n a F a s o B u r u n d i C a m e r o o n C ô t e d ' I v o i r e E t h i o p i a T h e G a m b i a K e n y a M a d a g a s c a r M a l a w i M o z a m b i q u e no education did not complete primary completed primary completed secondary or higher Source: Understanding Children’s Work calculations based on World Bank Standard Files and Standard Indicators datasets; see chapter 7 in UN (2005). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 S i e r r a L e o n e T o g o C h a d G u i n e a - B i s s a u B u r k i n a F a s o E t h i o p i a G u i n e a C o m o r o s C ô t e d ’ I v o i r e T a n z a n i a C o n g o , D e m . R e p . o f B u r u n d i S e n e g a l R w a n d a L e s o t h o G h a n a S o u t h A f r i c a M a d a g a s c a r T h e G a m b i a M a l i S u d a n C a m e r o o n N a m i b i a Z a m b i a U g a n d a S w a z i l a n d M a l a w i K e n y a incidence of economically active children (%) C e n t r a l A f r i c a n R e p u b l i c YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 9
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    employment is inthe informal and self-employment sectors. In urban areas some young people work in paid employment, but even there almost 80 percent of youth in Cameroon and Kenya work in the infor- mal sector or are self-employed. • Low investment in human capital. Investment in human capital outside of school has lagged. In the formal sector, skill development schemes continue to be supply-driven and disconnected from the demands of the labor market (Adams 2006). In the informal sector, traditional apprenticeship is still the main mechanism for skill development for new entrants. The strength of the traditional apprenticeship is its 10 Garcia and Fares Figure 1.5.The Level of LiteracyVariesWidely in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Higher- Income CountriesTending to Have Higher Literary Rates 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 6 log GDP per capita literacy rate among youth (%) 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 Source: Fares and Raju 2006.. Figure 1.6. Most AfricanYouthWork in the Informal Sector or Are Self-Employed 0 20 40 60 80 100 S ã o T o m é a n d P r i n c i p e M a l a w i Z a m b i a M o z a m b i q u e B u r u n d i B u r k i n a F a s o K e n y a M a d a g a s c a r E t h i o p i a C a m e r o o n rural urban informally and self-employed youth (%) T h e G a m b i a Source: Understanding Children’s Work calculations based on World Bank Standard Files and Standard Indicators datasets; see chapter 7. YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 10
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    practical orientation, self-regulation,and self-financing. It reaches those who lack the educational requirement needed for formal train- ing and is generally cost-effective. Apprenticeship tends to be biased against young women, however, and perpetuates the use of traditional and outdated technologies (World Bank 2006). • High illiteracy among 15–24-year-olds. Literacy rates vary widely in Sub-Saharan Africa. Several countries, including Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, South Africa, and Tanzania, have raised literacy rates above 90 percent; in others the literacy rate among youth is estimated to be as low as 30 percent. Literacy among youth increases with income (figure 1.5). Large variations even among countries with similar income levels point to the significant challenges coun- tries face in developing young people’s skills and integrating youth into the work force. • Barriers to youth entry into the labor market. In 2003 more than 18 million youth in Sub-Saharan Africa—21 percent of the work force—were unemployed. This figure rose 32.5 percent between 1993 and 2003. In rapidly growing urban areas, the level of youth unemployment is three to four times that of adults. In other areas, a large proportion of the pop- ulation, particularly females, remains outside the labor market. Among females who are not in school,more than 50 percent in Mozambique and 60 percent in Ethiopia are outside the labor force (see chapter 5).These high estimates may be attributable to measurement problems, particu- larly for young girls and women working within their own households. In Tanzania the majority of young females report that the main reason they are not looking for work is their household responsibilities. The Policy Response A successful policy response to the challenge of youth employment rests on three pillars: broadening opportunities for young people to accumulate and preserve human capital, increasing the capability of youth to take advantage of work opportunities, and providing a second chance, so that no one is left behind. Broadening opportunities to acquire human capital is essential to continue the progress already made on primary education. More needs to be done to increase access to postprimary education and enhance the quality of education. The challenge in the labor market is to create Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 11 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 11
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    jobs that allowyouth to protect and continue to develop their human capital. Beyond schools, youth need access to skill development through apprenticeship schemes, both formal and informal, and voca- tional education driven by the needs in the labor market.The large stock of low-skilled youth (child laborers, school drop-outs, and former soldiers) facing difficulties accessing the labor market calls for a system of second chances to reintegrate youth into the work force. The costs of failure are tremendous. Broadening Opportunities in the Labor Market Broadening opportunities in the labor market for youth not only allows young people to put the skills acquired in school to use, it also helps ensure that they continue to acquire and develop the skills needed to earn a good livelihood. Because youth tend to learn most in their early years of work experience, the difficulties they face entering employment can lead to deterioration in their human capital and the loss of early investment in skill development—with long-lasting effects on their future work. Economic growth and general job creation will expand the opportu- nities for youth to find work. In Ethiopia the estimated youth employment elasticity of demand is positive, exceeding one in several instances (figure 1.7). But general policies will not be sufficient to smooth the transition to work, because market and policy failures limit young people’s ability to take advantage of opportunities (see chapter 6).The demographic pressure 12 Garcia and Fares Figure 1.7. Less-SkilledYouth Are MostVulnerable to Changes in the Supply of and Demand for Labor in Ethiopia –6 –5 –4 –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 never attended school primary or less lower secondary (not completed) lower secondary higher education youth educational attainment adult employment ratio (demand) share of population (supply) estimated employment elasticity of demand/supply Source: World Bank calculations, based on chapter 9 in this report. YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 12
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    from the largeyouth cohort entering the labor market will adversely affect youth employment in Africa. Policies need to ensure that demand will off- set these pressures and allow the market to absorb these new cohorts into productive employment. Increasing the Capability of Youth to Take Advantage of Work Opportunities Increasing youth capability starts with providing young men and women with the relevant skills and information they need to enter work. Because many youth start work too early, they do not have the chance to accumulate the minimum level of human capital needed to be well prepared in their transition to the labor market. In Ethiopia less-skilled youth are much more vulnerable than other youth to fluctuations in economic conditions and to supply pressures from changes in the size of the youth cohort (figure 1.7). Improving their skills, in school and beyond, is necessary to protect them from supply and demand shocks. Youth need to be empowered so they can work for themselves and create jobs for others. Empowering them to do so requires improving the business climate and increasing youth access to credit and information. Giving Youth a Second Chance Many youth in Sub-Saharan Africa need a second chance. Weather, economic, and political fluctuations are common, and youth are most vulnerable to these shocks. Many young people are infected with HIV; others are AIDS orphans. Because youth experiment early on in their careers, they are more mobile and more likely to change jobs or residence than other workers. But doing so involves risks. Giving youth a second chance will permit them to better manage these risks, allowing them to recover from shocks and move to more productive opportunities. Second-chance opportunities are particularly important for the estimated 95 million unskilled youth in Africa who are out of school and either unemployed or underemployed.2 Governments everywhere in Africa are considering providing them with a second chance, through well-targeted training programs or direct employment creation. Some countries are implementing short-term interventions needed as a bridge response. Long-term policies that increase the opportunities and the capability of youth are also taking shape in some countries. With almost half of Africa’s youth in need of second-chance opportunities, these policies need to be a priority. Why Is It Important for Africa to Invest in Its Youth? 13 YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 13
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    Notes 1. The UNWorld Population Prospects projects that Sub-Saharan Africa will have more youth than any other region by 2050. Projections over long horizons are very uncertain and unreliable, however. 2. This estimate is based on the assumption that the average share of unskilled youth in Sub-Saharan Africa is equal to the estimated average share of unskilled youth in the 13 countries with available data on educational attainment. 14 Garcia and Fares YALM_1-14 3/13/08 5:31 PM Page 14
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    Africa’s youth followtwo paths in their transitions to working life. Some go to work directly, without benefit of formal schooling. Others join the work force after spending time in the formal school system. A substantial proportion of young people in most Sub-Saharan African countries never enter school, moving directly into the labor force. The incidence of child labor in Sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world. In 29 African countries for which data are available, an average of 35 percent of children under the age of 15 work (Fares and Raju 2006). Early exposure to the job market in childhood or early adolescence can have a strong negative impact on future labor market experience and earning potential. Today’s child laborers will represent the weakest part of tomorrow’s adult labor force. Africans who transition from school to work experience very long peri- ods of inactivity, implying significant labor market entry problems. In 8 of the 13 countries reviewed (Cameroon, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, São Tomé and Principe, and Zambia), young people face about five years of inactivity before finding work; youth in Uganda are inactive for more than three years on average. The transition duration is just one year in Côte d’Ivoire and almost seven years in Mozambique. These large differences indicate that the vulnerability of young people to unsuccessful transition varies greatly across countries. C H A P T E R 2 Transitions to Working Life for Africa’s Youth Marito Garcia and Jean Fares 15 YALM_15-26 3/13/08 5:32 PM Page 15
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    School nonentrants area great policy concern because of their vul- nerability to undesirable transition outcomes. School nonentrants are among the groups most vulnerable to child labor, therefore, finding sat- isfactory employment as adults cannot be separated from the issue of child labor. The size of the group of school nonentrants varies widely across coun- tries. In one broad group of countries, at least 90 percent of children attend school for at least some period of time. In a second group of coun- tries, the percentage of children and youth not transiting through the school system is much higher, ranging from 17 percent in Cameroon to 70 percent in Burkina Faso. In 5 of the 13 countries examined in this report, more than 40 percent of 13-year-olds are working (table 2.1). In Burkina Faso and Uganda, more than 63 percent of 10-year-olds are out of school and working. The average age at first job for children never attending school varies greatly across countries. In Kenya children begin work at about 15; in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Principe children begin work at 16–17. In contrast, children begin work at about 8 years old in Burkina Faso and at 10 in Burundi. In Zambia about 23 percent of children are already working by age 10, and like Burundi, 42 percent are working by the time they reach 13. Of the world’s 250 million child workers, one-third live in Africa. Africa has the highest incidence of child labor in the world, and it has more child workers than any other region of the world. Twenty-five percent of child workers ages 5–14 live in Africa—more than in Asia 16 Garcia and Fares Table 2.1. Age of First Job and Percentage of ChildrenWorking in Selected Countries Age at Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of Country first job 10-year-olds working 12-year-olds working 13-year-olds working Burkina Faso 8.4 63.6 66.0 68.3 Burundi 10.2 22.5 35.5 42.2 Cameroon 11.2 32.7 30.6 32.1 Côte d’Ivoire 11.5 13.7 10.1 8.9 Ethiopia 16.5 15.4 13.7 17.0 Kenya 14.8 8.2 16.4 17.5 Mozambique 17.1 3.9 6.7 13.2 São Tomé and Principe 16.3 9.1 10.8 13.5 Uganda 13.8 63.6 66.0 68.3 Zambia 14.5 22.5 35.5 42.2 Source: Understanding Children’s Work calculations based on World Bank Standard Files and Standard Indicators datasets; see chapter 7. YALM_15-26 3/13/08 5:32 PM Page 16
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    (18.7 percent) orLatin America (17.0 percent). Child labor has been declining everywhere in the world but Africa (ILO 2006). This trend is linked to a combination of factors, including economic decline, war, famine, and HIV/AIDS. In West Africa the need for children to find work has led to child migration to Benin. Eight percent of children 6–16 in West Africa are reported to have left their households to work in Benin. Children who are orphans or in foster care are more likely than other children to work (Kielland and Tovo 2006). Wars, famine, and the spread of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa have increased the number of orphans, potentially increasing the number of child workers. The incidence of child labor poses an enormous challenge in Sub- Saharan Africa. Working can have deleterious effects on children’s health, education, and moral well-being, with effects that persist over the lifecycle (Bhalotra 2003). In Tanzania a nonnegligible proportion of the population starts to work at an early age, either dropping out of or never attending school. In Ethiopia, where the rate of child labor force participation may be the highest in the world, more than 40 percent of 5- to 9-year-old urban males are involved in economic activities (figure 2.1; Cockburn 2002). More than a third of all 5- to 14-year-olds in Ethiopia—more than 5 million children—were at work in economic activity in 2001. Child labor is also widespread in Burkina Faso. The problem is particularly serious in rural areas, but even in urban areas about 10 percent of children work. Most African children who work are unpaid family members, parti- cularly in rural areas. As children grow older, they engage in more wage employment and are more likely to work as paid domestic helpers, although wage employment is still limited. In Ethiopia most child laborers Transitions to Working Life for Africa’s Youth 17 0 20 40 60 80 100 5 age in years male female male female urban rural children in labor force (%) 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Figure 2.1. Child Participation in the Labor Force Is High, Particularly among Rural Males in Ethiopia Source: Understanding Children’s Work calculations based on Ethiopia Labor Force Survey 2001; see chapter 9. YALM_15-26 3/13/08 5:32 PM Page 17
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    "There is aGreen Hill far away Without a city wall, Where our dear Lord was crucified, Who died to save us—all." and she sang "From the Desert I come to thee, On a stallion shod with fire! And the winds are not more fleet Than the wings of my de-sire!" Like an Innocent pouring kerosene on the Flame-of-the-World the young voice soared and swelled to that lovely, limpid word "desire." (In the darkness I saw Paul Brenswick's hand clutch suddenly out to his Mate's. In the darkness I saw George Keets switch around suddenly and begin to whisper very fast to Allan John.) And then she sang a little nonsense rhyme about "Rabbits" which she explained rather shyly she had just made up. "She was very fond of rabbits," she explained. "And of dogs, too—if all the truth were to be told. Also cats." "Also—shells!" sniffed young Kennilworth. "Yes, also shells," conceded the May Girl without resentment. "Ha!" sniffed young Kennilworth. "O—h, a—jealous lover, this," deprecated George Keets. "Really, Miss Davies," he condoned, "I'm afraid to-morrow is going to be somewhat of a strain on you." "To-morrow?" dimpled the May Girl. "Ha!—To-morrow!" shrugged young Kennilworth. "It was the rabbits," dimpled the May Girl, "that I was going to tell you about now. It's a very moral song written specially to deplore the—the thievish habits of the rabbits. But I can't seem to get
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    around to the'deploring' until the second verse. All the first verse is just scientific description." Adorably the young voice lilted into the nonsense—— "Oh, the habit of a rabbit Is a fact that would amaze From the pinkness of his blinkness and the blandness of his gaze, In a nose that's so a-twinkle like a merri—perri—winkle— And—" Goodness me!—That voice!—The babyishness of it!—And the poignancy! Should one laugh? Or should one cry? Clap one's hands? Or bolt from the room? I decided to bolt from the room. Both my Husband and myself thought it would be only right to telephone Dr. Brawne about the fainting spell. There was a telephone fortunately in my own room. And there is one thing at least very compensatory about telephoning to doctors. If you once succeed in finding them, there is never an undue lag in the conversation itself. "But tell me only just one thing," I besought my Husband, "so I won't be talking merely to a voice! This Dr. Brawne of yours?—Is he old or young? Fat or thin? Jolly? Or——?" "He's about fifty," said my Husband. "Fifty-five perhaps. Stoutish rather, I think you'd call him. And jolly. Oh, I——" "Ting-a-ling—ling—ling!" urged the telephone-bell. Across a hundred miles of dripping, rain-bejeweled wires, Dr. Brawne's voice flamed up at last with an almost metallic crispness. "Yes?" "This is Dr. Brawne?" "Yes." "This is Mrs. Delville—Jack Delville's wife."
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    "Yes?" "We just thoughtwe'd call up and report the safe arrival of your ward and tell you how much we are enjoying her!" "Yes? I trust she didn't turn up with any more lame, halt, or blind pets than you were able to handle." "Oh no—no—not—at all!" I hastened to affirm. (Certainly it seemed no time to explain about poor Allan John.) "But what I really called up to say," I hastened to confide, "is that she fainted this afternoon, and——" "Yes?" crisped the clear incisive voice again. "Fainted," I repeated. "Yes?" "Fainted!" I fairly shouted. "Oh, I hardly think that's anything," murmured Dr. Brawne. His voice sounded suddenly very far away and muffled as though he were talking through a rather soggy soda biscuit. "She faints very easily. I don't find anything the matter. It's just a temporary instability, I think. She's grown so very fast." "Yes, she's tall," I admitted. "Everything else all right?" queried the voice. The wires were working better now. "I don't need to ask if she's having a good time," essayed the voice very courteously. "She's always so essentially original in her ways of having a good time—even with strangers—even when she's really feeling rather shy." "Oh, she's having a good time, all right," I hastened to assure him. "Three perfectly eligible young men all competing for her favor!" "Only three?" laughed the voice. "You surprise me!" "And speaking of originality," I rallied instantly to that laugh, "she has invented the most diverting game! She is playing at being- engaged-to-a-different-man—every day of her visit. Oh very
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    circumspectly, you understand,"I hastened to affirm. "Nothing serious at all!" "No, I certainly hope not," mumbled the voice again through some maddeningly soggy connection. "Because, you see, I'm rather expecting to marry her myself on the fifteenth of September next." CHAPTER IV SLEEP is a funny thing! Really comical I mean! A magician's trick! "Now you have it—and now you don't!" Certainly I had very little of it the night of Dr. Brawne's telephone conversation. I was too surprised. Yet staring up through those long wakeful hours into the jetty black heights of my bedroom ceiling it didn't seem to be so much the conversation itself as the perfectly irrelevant events succeeding that conversation that kept hurtling back so into my visual consciousness —The blueness of the May Girl's eyes! The brightness of her hair!— Rollins's necktie! The perfectly wanton hideousness of Rollins's necktie!—The bang—bang—bang of a storm- tortured shutter way off in the ell somewhere. Step by step, item by item, each detail of events reprinted itself on my mind. Fumbling back from the shadowy telephone- stand into the brightly lighted upper hall with the single desire to find my Husband and confide to him as expeditiously as possible this news which had so amazed me, I had stumbled instead upon the May Girl herself, climbing somewhat listlessly up the stairs toward bed, Rollins was close behind her carrying her book and a filmy sky-blue scarf. George Keets followed with a pitcher of water. "Oh, it isn't Good Night, dear, is it?" I questioned. "Yes," said the May Girl. "I'm—pretty tired." She certainly looked it. Rollins quite evidently was in despair. He was not to accomplish his 'kiss' after all, it would seem. All the long day, I judged, he had been
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    whipping up hischeeky courage to meet some magic opportunity of the evening. And now, it appeared, there wasn't going to be any evening! Even the last precious moment indeed was to be ruined by George Keets's perfidious intrusion! It was the Bride's voice though that rang down the actual curtain on Rollins's "Perfect Day." "Oh, Miss Davies!—Miss Davies!" called the Bride. "You mustn't forget to return your ring, you know!" "Why, no, so I mustn't," rallied the May Girl. Twice I heard Rollins swallow very hard. Any antique was sacred to him, but a family antique. Oh, ye gods! "K—K—Keep the ring!" stammered Rollins. It was the nearest point to real heroism surely that funny little Rollins would ever attain. "Oh, no, indeed," protested the May Girl. Very definitely she snapped the silken threads, removed the clumsy bauble from her finger, and handed it back to Rollins. "But—but it's a beautiful ring!" she hastened chivalrously to assure him. "I'll—I'll keep the orchids!" she assented with real dimples. On Rollins's sweating face the symptoms of acute collapse showed suddenly. With a glare that would have annihilated a less robust soul than George Keets's he turned and laid bare his horrid secret to an unfeeling Public. "I'd rather you kept the ring," sweated Rollins. "The—The orchids have got to go back!—I only hired the orchids!—That is I—I bribed the gardener. They've got to be back by nine o'clock to-night. For some sort of a—a party." "To-night?" I gasped. "In all this storm f Why, what if the May Girl had refused to—to——?" In Rollins's small, blinking eyes, Romance and Thrift battled together in terrible combat. "I gotta go back," mumbled Rollins. "He's got my watch!"
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    "Oh, for goodnesssake you mustn't risk losing your watch!" laughed the May Girl. George Keets didn't laugh. He hooted! I had never heard him hoot before, and ribald as the sound seemed emanating from his distinctly austere lips, the mechanical construction of that hoot was in some way strangely becoming to him. The May Girl quite frankly though was afraid he had hurt Rollins's feelings. Returning swiftly from her bedroom with the lovely exotics bunched cautiously in one hand she turned an extravagantly tender smile on Rollins's unhappy face. "Just—Just one of them," she apologized, "is crushed a little. I know you told me to be awfully careful of them. I'm very sorry. But truly," she smiled, "it's been perfectly Wonderful—just to have them for a day! Thank you!—Thank you a whole lot, I mean! And for the day itself—it's—it's been very—pleasant," she lied gallantly. Snatching the orchids almost roughly from her hand Rollins gave another glare at George Keets and started for his own room. With his fingers on the door-handle he turned and glared back with particular ferocity at the May Girl herself. "Pleasant?" he scoffed. "Pleasant?" And crossing the threshold he slammed the door hard behind him. Never have I seen anything more boorish! "Why—Why, how tired he must be," exclaimed the May Girl. "Tired?" hooted George Keets. He was still hooting when he joined the Bride and Bridegroom in the library. It must have been fifteen minutes later that, returning from an investigation of the banging blind, I ran into Rollins stealing surreptitiously to the May Girl's door. Quite unconsciously, doubtless, but with most rapacious effect, his sparse hair was rumpled in innumerable directions, and the stealthy boy-pirate hunch to his shoulders added the last touch of melodrama to the scene. Rollins, as a gay Lothario, was certainly a new idea. I could have screamed
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    with joy. Butwhile I debated the ethics of screaming for joy only, the May Girl herself, as though in reply to his crafty knock, opened her door and stared frankly down at him with a funny, flushed sort of astonishment. She was in her great boyish blanket- wrapper, with her gauzy gold hair wafting like a bright breeze across her neck and shoulders, and the radiance of her I think would have startled any man. But it knocked the breath out of Rollins. "P-p-pleasant!" gasped Rollins, quite abruptly. "It was a—a Miracle!" "—Miracle?" puzzled the May Girl. "Wall-papers!" babbled Rollins. "Suppose it had been true?" he besought her. "To-day, I mean? Our betrothal?" With total unexpectedness he began to flutter a handfull of wall-paper samples under the May Girl's astonished nose. "I've got a little flat you know in town," babbled Rollins. "Just one room and bath. It's pretty dingy. But for a long time now I've been planning to have it all repapered. And if you'd choose the wallpaper for it—it would be pleasant to think of during—during the years!" babbled Rollins. "What?" puzzled the May Girl. Then quite suddenly she reached out and took the papers from Rollins's hand and bent her lovely head over them in perfectly solemn contemplation. "Why—why the pretty gray one with the white gulls and the flash of blue!" she decided almost at once, looked up for an instant, smiled straight into Rollins's fatuous eyes, and was gone again behind the impregnable fastness of her closed door, leaving Rollins gasping like a fool, his shoulders drooping, his limp hands clutching the sheet of white gulls with all the absurd manner of an amateur prima donna just on the verge of bursting into song! And all of a sudden starting to laugh I found myself crying instead. It was the expression in Rollins's eyes, I think. The one "off-guard" expression perhaps of Rollins's life! A scorching flame of self- revelation, as it were, that consumed even as it illuminated, leaving only gray ashes and perplexity. Not just the look it was of a Little- Man-Almost- Old-who-had-Never-Had-a-Chance-to-Play. But the look
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    of a Little-Man-Almost-Oldwho sensed suddenly for the first time that he never would have a chance to play! That Fate denying him the glint of wealth, the flash of romance, the scar even of tragedy, had stamped him merely with the indelible sign of a Person-Who wasn't—Meant to-be-Liked! Truly I was very glad to steal back into my dark room for a moment before trotting downstairs again to join all those others who were essentially intended for liking and loving, so eminently fitted, whether they refused or accepted it, for the full moral gamut of human experience. On my way down it was only human, of course, to stop in the May Girl's room. Rollins or no Rollins it was the May Girl's problem that seemed to me the only really maddening one of the moment. What in creation was life planning to proffer the May Girl?—Dr. Brawne?— Dr. Brawne?—It wasn't just a question of Dr. Brawne! But a question of the May Girl herself? She was still in her blanket-wrapper when I entered the room, but had hopped into bed, and sat bolt-up-right rocking vaguely, with her knees gathered to her chin in the circle of her slender arms. "What seems to be the matter?" I questioned. "That's what I don't know," she dimpled almost instantly. "But I seem to be worrying about something. "Worrying?" I puzzled. "Well,—maybe it's about the Pom dog," suggested the May Girl helpfully. "His mouth is so very—very tiny. Do you think he had enough supper?" "Oh, I'm sure he had enough supper," I hastened to reassure her. Very reflectively she narrowed her eyes to review the further field of her possible worries. "That cat—that your Husband said he sent away just before I came for fear I'd bring some—some contradictory animals—are you quite
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    sure that he'sgot a good home?" she worried. "Oh, the best in the world," I said. "A Maternity Hospital!" "Kittens?" brightened the May Girl for a single instant only. "Oh, you really mean kittens? Then surely there's nothing to worry about in that direction!" "Nothing but—kittens," I conceded. "Then it must be Allan John," said the May Girl. "His feet! Of course, I can't exactly help feeling pretty responsible for Allan John. Are you sure—are you quite sure, I mean, that he hasn't been sitting round with wet feet all the evening? He isn't exactly the croupy type, of course, but—" With a sudden irrelevant gesture she unclasped her knees, and shot her feet straight out in front of her. "Whatever in the world," she cried out, "am I going to do with Allan John when it comes time to go home! Now gold-fish," she reflected, "in a real emergency,—can always be tucked away in the bath-tub. And once when I brought home a Japanese baby," she giggled in spite of herself, "they made me keep it in my own room. But——" "But I've got a worry of my own," I interrupted. "It's about your fainting. It scared me dreadfully. I've just been telephoning to Dr. Brawne about it." Across the May Girl's supple body a curious tightness settled suddenly. "You—told—Dr. Brawne that—I fainted?" she said. "You—you oughtn't to have done that!" It was only too evident that she was displeased. "But we were worried," I repeated. "We had to tell him. We didn't like to take the responsibility." With her childish hands spread flatly as a brace on either side of her she seemed to retreat for a moment into the gold veil of her hair. Then very resolutely her face came peering out again. "And just what did Dr. Brawne—tell you?" asked the May Girl.
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    "Why something veryromantic," I admitted. "The somewhat astonishing news, in fact, that you were engaged—to him." "Oh, but you know, I'm not!" protested the May Girl with unmistakable emphasis. "No—No!" "And that he was hoping to be married next September. On the 15th to be perfectly exact," I confided. "Well, very likely I shall marry him," admitted the May Girl somewhat bafflingly. "But I'm not engaged to him now! Oh, I'm much too young to be engaged to him now! Why, even my grandmother thinks I'm much too young to be engaged to him now!—Why, he's most fifty years old!" she affirmed with widely dilating eyes. "—And I—I've scarcely been off my grandmother's place, you know, until this last winter! But if I'm grown-up enough by September, they say—you see I'll be eighteen and a half by September," she explained painstakingly, "so that's why I wanted to get engaged as much as I could this week!" she interrupted herself with quite merciless irrelevance. "If I've got to be married in September—without ever having been engaged or courted at all—I just thought I'd better go to work and pick up what experience I could—on my own hook!" "Dr.—Dr. Brawne will, of course, make you a very distinguished husband," I stammered, "but are you sure you love him?" "I love everybody!" dimpled the May Girl. "Yes, dogs, of course," I conceded, "and Rabbits—and horses and ——" "And kittens," supplemented the May Girl. "Your mother is—not living?" I asked rather abruptly. "My father is dead," said the May Girl. "But my mother is in Egypt." Her lovely face was suddenly all excitement. "My mother ran away!" "Oh! An elopement, you mean?" I laughed. "Ran away with your father. Youngsters used to do romantic things like that."
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    "Ran away frommy father," said the May Girl. "And from me. It was when I was four years old. None of us have ever seen her since. It was with one of Dr. Brawne's friends that she ran away. That's one reason, I think, why Dr. Brawne has always felt so sort of responsible for me." "Oh, dear—oh, dear, this is very sad," I winced. "N-o," said the May Girl perfectly simply. "Maybe it was bad but I'm almost sure it's never been sad. Dr. Brawne hears from her sometimes. Mother's always been very happy, I think. But everybody somehow seems to be in an awful hurry to get me settled." "Why?" I asked quite starkly, and could have bitten my tongue out for my impertinence. "Why—because I'm so tall, I suppose," said the May Girl. "And not so very specially bright. Oh, not nearly as bright as I am tall!" she hastened to assure me with her pretty nose all crinkled up for the sheer emphasis of her regret. "Life's rather hard, you know, on tall women," she confided sagely. "Always trying to take a tuck in them somewhere! Mother was tall," she observed; "and Father, they say, was always and forever trying to make her look smaller—especially in public! Pulling her opinions out from under her! Belittling all her great, lovely fancies and ideas! Not that he really meant to be hateful, I suppose. But he just couldn't help it. It was just the natural male-instinct I guess of wanting to be the everythinger— himself!" "What do you know of the natural male 'instinct'?" I laughed out in spite of myself. "Oh—lots," smiled the May Girl. "I have an uncle. And my grandmother always keeps two hired men. And for almost six months now I've been at the Art School. And there are twenty- seven boys at the Art School. Why there's Jerry and Paul and Richard and—and——" "Yes, but your father and mother?" I pondered. "Just how——?"
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    "Oh, it waswhen they were walking downtown one day past a great big mirror," explained the May Girl brightly. "And Mother saw that she was getting round-shouldered trying to keep down to Father's level—it was then that she ran away! It was then that she began to run away I mean! To run away in her mind! I heard grandmother and Dr. Brawne talking about it only last summer. But I?" she affirmed with some pride, "oh, I've known about being tall ever since I first had starch enough in my knees to stand up! While I stayed in my crib I don't suppose I noticed it specially. But just as soon as I was big enough to go to school. Why, even at the very first," she glowed, "when every other child in the room had failed without the slightest reproach some perfectly idiotic visitor would always pipe up and say, 'Now ask that tall child there! The one with the yellow hair!' And everyone would be as vexed as possible because I failed, too! It isn't my head, you know that's tall," protested the May Girl with some feeling, "it's just my neck and legs! "You certainly are entrancingly graceful," I smiled. How anybody as inexpressibly lovely as the May Girl could be so oblivious of the fact was astonishing! But neither smile nor compliment seemed to allay to the slightest degree the turmoil that was surging in the youngster's mind. "Why, even at the Art School," she protested, "it's just as bad! Especially with the boys! Being so tall—and with yellow hair besides —you just can't possibly be as important as you are conspicuous! And yet every individual boy seems obliged to find out for himself just exactly how important you are! But no matter what he finds," she shrugged with a gesture of ultimate despair, "it always ends by everybody getting mad!" "Mad?" I questioned. "Yes—very mad," said the May Girl. "Either he's mad because he finds you're not nearly as nice as you are conspicuous, or else, liking you most to death, he simply can't stand it that anyone as nice as he thinks you are is able to outplay him at tennis or—that's why I like
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    animals best—and hurtthings!" she interrupted herself with characteristic impetuosity. "Animals and hurt things don't care how rangy your arms are as long as they're loving! Why if you were as tall as a tree," she argued, "little deserted birds in nests would simply be glad that you could reach them that much sooner! But men? Why, even your nice Mr. Keets," she cried; "even your nice Mr. Keets, with his fussy old Archaeology, couldn't even play at being engaged without talking down—down—down at me! Tall as he is, too! And funny little old Mr. Rollins," she flushed. "Little—little—old Mr. Rollins—Mr. Rollins really liked me, I think, but he—he'd torture me if he thought it would make him feel any burlier! "And Claude Kennilworth," I questioned. The shiver across the May Girl's shoulders looked suddenly more like a thrill than a distaste. "Oh, Claude Kennilworth," she acknowledged quite ingenuously. "He's begun already to try to 'put me in my place'! Altogether too independent is what he thinks I am. But what he really means is 'altogether too tall'!" Once again the little shiver flashed across her shoulders. "He's so—so awfully temperamental!" she quickened. "Goodness knows what fireworks he'll introduce tomorrow! I can hardly wait!" "Is—is Dr. Brawne—tall?" I asked a bit abruptly. "N—o," admitted the May Girl. "He's quite short! But—his years are so tall!" she cried out triumphantly. "He's so tall in his attainments! I've thought it all out—oh very—very carefully," she attested. "And if I've got to be married in order to have someone to look out for me I'm almost perfectly positive that Dr. Brawne will be quite too amused at having so young a wife to bully me very much about anything that goes with the youngness!" "Oh—h," I said. "Yes,—exactly," mused the May Girl.
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    With a heartand an apprehension just about as gray and as heavy as lead I rose and started for the door. "But, May Girl?" I besought her in a single almost hysterical desire to rouse her from her innocence and her ignorance. "Among all this great array of men and boys that you know— the uncle—yes, even the hired men," I laughed, "and all those blue-smocked boys at the Art School—whom do you really like the best?" So far her eyes journeyed off into the distance and back again I thought that she had not heard me. Then quite abruptly she answered me. And her voice was all boy-chorister again. "The best?—why, Allan John!" she said. Taken all in all there were several things said and done that evening that would have kept any normal hostess awake, I think. The third morning dawned even rainier than the second! Infinitely rainier than the first! It gave everybody's coming-down-stairs expression a curiously comical twist as though Dame Nature herself had been caught off-guard somehow in a moment of dishabille that though inexpressibly funny, couldn't exactly be referred to—not among mere casual acquaintances—not so early in the morning, anyway! Yet even though everybody rushed at once to the fireplace instead of to the breakfast-table nobody held us responsible for the weather. Everyone in fact seemed to make rather an extra effort to assure us that he or she—as the case might be, most distinctly did not hold us responsible. Paul Brenswick indeed grew almost eloquent telling us about an accident to the weather which he himself had witnessed in a climate as supposedly well-regulated as the climate of South Eastern Somewhere was supposed to be! Ann Woltor raked her cheerier memories for the story of a four days' rain- storm which she had experienced once in a very trying visit to her great aunt somebody- or-other on some peculiarly stormbound section of the Welsh coast. George Keet's chivalrous anxiety to set us at our ease was truly
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    heroic. He evenimprovised a parody about it: "Rain," observed George Keets, "makes strange umbrella-mates!" A leak had developed during the night it seemed in the ceiling directly over his bed—and George, the finicky, the fastidious, the silk- pajamered— had been obliged to crawl out and seek shelter with Rollins and his flannel night-cap in the next room. And Rollins, it appeared, had not proved a particularly genial host. "By the way, where is Mr. Rollins this morning?" questioned the Bride from her frowning survey of the storm-swept beach. "Mr. Rollins," confided my Husband, "has a slight headache this morning." "Why, that's too bad," sympathized Ann Woltor. "No, it isn't a bad one at all," contradicted my Husband. "Just the very mildest one possible—under the circumstances. It was really very late when he got in again last night. And very wet." From under his casually lowered eyes a single glance of greeting shot out at me. "Now, there you are again!" cried George Keets. "Flirting! You married people! Something that anyone else would turn out as mere information,—'The Ice Man has just left two chunks of ice!' or 'Mr. Rollins has a headache'!—you go and load up with some mysterious and unfathomable significance! Glances pass! Your wife flushes!" "Mysterious?" shrugged my Husband. "Unfathomable? Why it's clear as crystal. The madam says, 'Let there be a headache'—and there is a headache!" As Allan John joined the group at the fireplace everybody began talking weather again. From the chuckle of the birch- logs to the splash on the window-pane the little groups shifted and changed. Everybody seemed to be waiting for something. On the neglected breakfast table even the gay upstanding hemispheres of grapefruit rolled over on their beds of ice to take another nap. In a great flutter of white and laughter the May Girl herself came prancing over the threshold. It wasn't just the fact of being in white that made her look so astonishingly festal; she was almost always in
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    white. Not yetthe fact of laughter. Taken all in all I think she was the most radiantly laughing youngster that I have ever known. But most astonishingly festal she certainly looked, nevertheless. Maybe it was the specially new and chic little twist which she had given her hair. Maybe it was the absurdly coquettish dab of black court-plaster which she had affixed to one dimply cheek. "Oh, if I'm going to be engaged to-day to a real artist," she laughed, "I've certainly got to take some extra pains with my personal appearance. Why, I've hardly slept all night," she confided ingenuously, "I was so excited!" "Yes, won't it be interesting," whispered the Bride to George Keets, "to see what Mr. Kennilworth will really do? He's so awfully temperamental! And so—so inexcusably beautiful. Whatever he does is pretty sure to be interesting. Now up- stairs—all day yesterday— wouldn't it——?" "Yes, wouldn't it be interesting," glowed Ann Woltor quite unexpectedly, "if he'd made her something really wonderful? Something that would last, I mean, after the game was over? Even just a toy, something that would outlast Time itself. Something that even when she was old she could point to and say, 'Claude Kennilworth made that for me when—we were young'." "Why, Ann Woltor!" I stammered. "Do you feel that way about him? Does—does he make you feel that way, too!" "I think—he would make—anyone feel that way—too," intercepted Allan John quite amazingly. In three days surely it was the only voluntary statement he had made, and everybody turned suddenly to stare at him. But it was only too evident from the persistent haggardness of his expression that he had no slightest intention in the world of pursuing his unexpected volubility. "And it isn't just his good looks either!" resumed the Bride as soon as she had recovered from her own astonishment at the interpolation.
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    "Oh, something, verydifferent," mused Ann Woltor. "The queer little sense he gives you of—of wires humming! Whether you like him or not that queer little sense of 'wires humming' that all really creative people give you! As though—as though—they were being rather specially re-charged all the time from the Main Battery!" "The 'Main Battery,'" puzzled the Bridegroom, "being——?" "Why God,—of course!" said the Bride with a vague sort of surprise. "When women talk mechanics and religion in the same breath," laughed the Bridegroom, "it certainly——" "I was talking neither mechanics nor religion," affirmed the Bride, with the faintest possible tinge of asperity. "Oh, of course, anyone can see," admitted the Bridegroom, "that Kennilworth is a clever chap." "Clever as the deuce!" acquiesced George Keets. With an impatient tap of her foot the May Girl turned suddenly back from the window. "Yes! But where is he?" she laughed. "That's what I say!" cried my Husband. "We've waited quite long enough for him!" "Dallying up-stairs probably to put a dab of black court- plaster on his cheek!" observed George Keets drily. With one accord everybody but the May Girl rushed impulsively to the breakfast table. "Seems as though—somebody ought to wait," dimpled the May Girl. "Oh, nonsense!" asserted everybody. A little bit reluctantly she came at last to her place. Her face was faintly troubled. "On—on an engagement morning," she persisted, "it certainly seems as though—somebody ought to wait."
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    In the hallwayjust outside a light step sounded suddenly. It was really astonishing with what an air of real excitement and expectancy everybody glanced up. But the step in the hall proved only the step of a maid. "The young gentleman upstairs sent a message," said the maid. "Most particular he was that I give it exact. 'It being so rainy again,' he says, 'and there not being anything specially interesting on the— the docket as far as he knows, he'll stay in bed—thank you.'" For an instant it seemed as though everybody at the table except Allan John jerked back from his plate with a knife, fork or spoon, brandished half-way in mid air. There was no jerk left in Allan John, I imagine. It was Allan John's color that changed. A dull flush of red where once just gray shadows had lain. "So he'll stay in bed, thank you," repeated the maid sing- songishly. "What?" gasped my Husband. "W-w-what?" stammered the May Girl. "Well—of all the—nerve!" muttered Paul Brenswick. "Why—why how extraordinary," murmured Ann Woltor. "There's your 'artistic temperament' for you, all right!" laughed the Bride a bit hectically. "Peeved is it because he thought Miss Davies ——?" "Don't you think you're just a bit behind the times in your interpretation of the phrase 'artistic temperament'?" interrupted George Keets abruptly. "Except in special neurasthenic cases it is no longer the fashion I believe to lay bad manners to the artistic temperament itself but rather to the humble environment from which most artistic temperaments are supposed to have sprung." "Eh? What's that?" laughed the Bride. Very deliberately George Keets lit a fresh cigarette. "No one person, you know, can have everything," he observed with the thinnest of all his thin-lipped smiles. "Three generations of plowing, isn't it, to raise
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    one artist? Oh,Mr. Kennilworth's social eccentricities, I assure you, are due infinitely more to the soil than to the soul." "Oh, can your statistics!" implored my Husband a bit sharply, "and pass Miss Davies the sugar!" "And some coffee!" proffered Paul Brenswick. "And this heavenly cereal!" urged the Bride. "Oh, now I remember," winced the May Girl suddenly. "He said 'she'll wait all right'—but, of course, it does seem just a little—wee bit—f- funny! Even if you don't care a—a rap," she struggled heroically through a glint of tears. "Even if you don't care a rap—sometimes it's just a little bit hard to say a word like f-funny!" "Damned hard," agreed my Husband and Paul Brenswick and George Keets all in a single breath. The subsequent conversation fortunately was not limited altogether to expletives. Never, I'm sure, have I entertained a more vivacious not to say hilarious company at breakfast. Nobody seemed contented just to keep dimples in the May Girl's face. Everybody insisted upon giggles. The men indeed treated them selves to what is usually described as "wild guffaws." Personally I think it was a mistake. It brought Rollins down- stairs just as everybody was leaving the table in what had up to that moment been considered perfectly reestablished and invulnerable glee. Everybody, of course, except poor Allan John. No one naturally would expect any kind of glee from Allan John. In the soft pussy-footed flop of his felt slippers none of us heard Rollins coming. But I—I saw him! And such a Rollins! Stripped of the single significant facial expression of his life which I had surprised so unexpectedly in his eyes the night before, Rollins would certainly never be anything but just Rollins! Heavily swathed in his old plaid ulster with a wet towel bound around his brow he loomed cautiously on the scene bearing an empty coffee cup, and from the faintly shadowing delicacy of the parted portieres affirmed with one breath
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    how astonished hewas to find us still at breakfast, while with the next he confided equally fatuously, "I thought I heard merry voices!" It was on Claude Kennilworth's absence, of course, that his maddening little mind fixed itself instantly with unalterable concentration. "What ho! The—engagement?" he demanded abruptly. "There isn't any engagement," said my Husband with a somewhat vicious stab at the fire. From his snug, speculative scrutiny of the storm outside, George Keets swung round with what quite evidently was intended to be a warning frown. "Mr. Kennilworth has—defaulted," he murmured. "Defaulted!" grinned Rollins. Then with perfectly unprecedented perspicacity his roving glance snatched up suddenly the unmistakable tremor of the May Girl's chin. "Oh, what nonsense!" he said. "There are plenty of other eligible men in the party!" "Oh, but you see—there are not!" laughed Paul Brenswick. "Mr. Delville and I are Married—and our wives won't let us." "Oh, nonsense!" grinned Rollins. Once again his roving glance swept the company. Everybody saw what was coming, turned hot, turned cold, shut his eyes, opened them again, but was powerless to avert. "Why, what's the matter with trying Allan John?" grinned Rollins. The thing was inexcusable! Brutal! Blundering! Absolutely doltish beyond even Rollins's established methods of doltishness. But at last when everybody turned inadvertently to scan poor Allan John's face —there was no Allan John to be scanned. Somewhere through a door or a window—somehow between one blink of the eye and another—Allan John had slipped from the room. "Why—why, Mr. Rollins!" gasped everybody all at once. "Whatever in the world were you thinking of?"
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    "Maybe—maybe—he didn't hearit—after all!" rallied the Bride with the first real ray of hope. "Maybe he just saw it coming," suggested the Bridegroom. "And dodged in the nick of time," said George Keets. "To save not only himself but ourselves," frowned my Husband, "from an almost irretrievable awkwardness. "Why just the minute before it happened," deprecated Ann Woltor, "I was thinking suddenly how much better he looked, how his color had improved,—why his cheeks looked almost red." "Yes, the top of his cheeks," said the May Girl, "were really quite red." Her own cheeks at the moment were distinctly pale. "Where do you suppose he's gone to?" she questioned. "Don't you think that— p'raps—somebody ought to go and find him?" "Oh, for heaven's sake leave him alone!" cried Paul Brenswick. "Leave him alone," acquiesced all the other men. In the moment's nervous reaction and letdown that ensued it was really a relief to hear George Keets cry out, with such poignant amazement from his stand at the window: "Why what in the world is that red-roof out on the rocks?" he cried. In the same impulse both my Husband and myself ran quickly to his side. "Oh, that's all right!" laughed my Husband. "I thought maybe it had blown off or something. Why, that's just the 'Bungalow on the Rocks,'" he explained. "My Husband's study and work-room," I exemplified. "'Forbidden- Ground' is its real name! Nobody is ever allowed to go there without an invitation from—himself!" "Why—but it wasn't there yesterday!" asserted George Keets. "Oh, yes, it was!" laughed my Husband.
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    "It was not!"said George Keets. The sheer unexpected primitiveness of the contradiction delighted us so that neither of us took the slightest offense. "Oh, I beg your pardon, of course," George Keets recovered himself almost in an instant—"that right here before our eyes—that same vivid scarlet roof was looming there yesterday against the gray rocks and sea—and none of us saw it?" "Saw what?" called Paul Brenswick. "Where?" And came striding to the window. "Gad!" said Paul Brenswick. "Victoria! Come here, quick!" he called. With frank curiosity the Bride joined the group. "Why of all things!" she laughed. "Why it never in the world was there yesterday!" A trifle self-consciously Ann Woltor joined the group. "Bungalow?" she questioned. "A Bungalow out on the rocks." Her face did certainly look just a little bit queer. Anyone who wanted to, was perfectly free of course, to interpret the look as one of incredulity. "No, of course not! Miss Woltor agrees with me perfectly," triumphed George Keets. "It was not there yesterday!" "Oh, but it must have been!" dimpled the May Girl. "If Mr. and Mrs. Delville say so! It's their bungalow!" "It—was—not there—yesterday," puzzled George Keets. More than having his honor at stake he spoke suddenly as though he thought it was his reason that was being threatened. With her cheeks quite rosy again the May Girl began to clap her hands. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. "Oh, I don't care whether it was there yesterday or not!" she triumphed. "It's there to-day! Let's go and explore it! And if it's magic, so much the better! Oh, loo—loo—look!" she cried as a great roar and surge of billows broke on the rocks all around the little red roof and churned the whole sky-line into a chaos of foam. "Oh, come —come!" she besought everybody.
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    "Oh, but, mydear!" I explained, "How would you get there? No row- boat could live in that sea! And by way of the rocky ledge there's no possible path except at the lowest tide! And besides," I reminded her, "it's named 'Forbidden Ground', you know! No body is supposed to go there without——" With all the impulsiveness of an irresponsible baby the May Girl dashed across the room and threw her arms round my neck. "Why, you old dear," she laughed, "don't you know that that's just the reason why I want to explore it! I want to know why it's 'Forbidden Ground'! Oh, surely—surely," she coaxed, "even if it is a work-room, there couldn't be any real sin in just prying a little?" "No, of course, no real sin," I laughed back at her earnestness. "Just an indiscretion!" Quite abruptly the May Girl relaxed her hug, and narrowed her lovely eyes dreamily to some personal introspection. "I've—never yet—committed a real indiscretion," she confided with apparent regret. "Well, pray don't begin," laughed George Keets in spite of himself, "by trying to explore something that isn't there." "And don't you and Keets," flared Paul Brenswick quite unexpectedly, "by denying the existence of something that is there!" "Well, if it is there to-day," argued George Keets, "it certainly wasn't there yesterday!" "Well, if it wasn't there yesterday, it is at least there to- day!" argued Paul Brenswick. "Rollins! Hi there—Rollins!" they both called as though in a single breath. From his humble seat on the top stair to which he had wisely retreated at his first inkling of having so grossly outraged public opinion, Rollins's reply came wafting some what hopefully back. "H—h—iii," rallied Rollins.
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    "That red roofon the rocks—" shouted Paul Brenswick. "Was it there—yesterday?" demanded George Keets. "Wait!" cackled Rollins. "Wait till I go look!" A felt footstep thudded. A window opened. The felt footstep thudded again. "No," called Rollins. "Now that I come to think of it— I don't remember having noticed a red roof there yesterday." "Now!" laughed George Keets. "But, oh, I say!" gasped Rollins, in what seemed to be very sudden and altogether indisputable confusion. "Why—why it must have been there! Because that's the shack where we've catalogued the shells every year—for the last seven years!" "Now!" laughed Paul Brenswick. Without another word everybody made a bolt for the hat-rack and the big oak settle, snatched up his or her oil-skin clothes—anybody's oil-skin clothes—and dashed off through the rain to the edge of the cliff to investigate the phenomenon at closer range. Truly the thing was almost too easy to be really righteous! Just a huge rock-colored tarpaulin stripped at will from a red-tiled roof and behold, mystery looms on an otherwise drab-colored day! And a mystery at a houseparty? Well— whoever may stand proven as the mother of invention— Curiosity, you know just as well as I do, is the father of a great many very sprightly little adventures! Within ten minutes from the proscenium box of our big bay- window, my Husband and I could easily discern the absurd little plot and counterplots that were already being hatched. It was the Bride and George Keets who seemed to be thinking, pointing, gesticulating, in the only perfect harmony. Even at this distance, and swathed as they were in hastily adjusted oil-skins, a curiously academic sort of dignity stamped their every movement. Nothing but sheer intellectual determination to prove that their minds were normal would ever tempt either one of them to violate a Host's "No Trespass" sign!
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