Young women’s labour market situation in sub-Saharan Africa deteriorating

The slightly improved labour market situation in sub-Saharan Africa has mainly benefited young men.Contrastingly, the situation of young women has deteriorated.The International Labour Organisation's Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 (GET Youth 2024) report said the unemployment rate for young women was on average higher than that of young men by 1.5 percentage points.It said the gap had increased since the pre-pandemic period and the gender gap with respect to the youth employment-to-population ratio had remained constant throughout the period and had shown no sign of reduction.In 2023, 38.2 per cent of young women were in employment compared to 42.6 per cent of young men.According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the economic outlook for sub-Saharan Africa was regaining strength after the financial instability and inflationary pressures from the post-COVID-19 period.'Growth is expected to consolidate at 3.8 per cent in 2024 from 3.4 per cent in 2023 and growth is projected at 4 p er cent in 2025,' it said.However, this growth projection is expected to have little impact on the youth unemployment rate given the situation of the region's 'youth bulge.'The ILO projects the youth unemployment rate in sub-Saharan Africa will hold steady at 8.9 per cent in 2024 and 2025.Similarly, the employment-to-population ratio in 2025 is projected at 40.4 per cent, the same as in 2023, while the youth Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) rate is expected to see a nominal decrease to 21.8 per cent (from 21.9 per cent in 2023).It said checking in with young people could reveal a sense of disconnect between the labour market statistics and the perceptions that young people share about their futures.The ILO report notes that it was the region with the highest share of young people feeling worried about job loss.It is also the region with the lowest share of the population, stating that they felt economic opportunities in their country to be sufficient.It said political instability and a deterioration of security in many African countries can be linked to young people's sense of anxiety about their futures.Globally, the number of conflicts (violent incidents) has more than doubled since 2010, with 200 incidences accounted for in 2022.Many conflict areas are concentrated in the sub-Saharan African region.The number of young persons estimated to live in the vicinity of conflicts in the region was 8.9 million in 2022 and population displacement is one impact of conflict.According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 68.3 million people were living in displacement across 66 countries and territories due to conflict and violence at the end of 2023.It said young people were increasingly concerned about the risk of their own countries becoming involved in a war.The latest round of the World Values Survey indicated that more than 83 per cent of young persons in sub-Saharan Africa were concerned about the possibility of war involving their countries, up by 12 percentage po ints compared to the previous survey round 10 years earlier.Source: Ghana News Agency