IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/anr/reseco/v14y2022p267-289.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rural Employment in Africa: Trends and Challenges

Author

Listed:
  • Luc Christiaensen

    (World Bank Group, Rome, Italy)

  • Miet Maertens

    (Division of Bioeconomics, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium)

Abstract

Africa's rural population continues to expand rapidly, and labor productivity in agriculture and many rural-off farm activities remains low. This review uses the lens of a dual economy and the associated patterns of agricultural, rural, and structural transformation to review the evolution of Africa's rural employment and its inclusiveness. Many African countries still find themselves in an early stage of the agricultural and rural transformation. Given smaller sectoral productivity gaps than commonly assumed, greater size effects, and larger spillovers, investment in agriculture and the rural off-farm economy remains warranted to broker the transition to more and more productive rural employment. The key policy questions thus become how best to invest in the agri-food system (on and increasingly also off the farm) and how best to generate demand for nonagricultural goods and services that rural households can competitively produce. Informing these choices continues to present a major research agenda, with digital technologies, the imperative of greening, and intra-African liberalization raising many unarticulated and undocumented opportunities and challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Luc Christiaensen & Miet Maertens, 2022. "Rural Employment in Africa: Trends and Challenges," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 267-289, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:anr:reseco:v:14:y:2022:p:267-289
    DOI: 10.1146/annurev-resource-111820-014312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-111820-014312
    Download Restriction: Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1146/annurev-resource-111820-014312?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pracht, Wyatt & Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob, 2022. "Building Sustainable Supply Chains: A Model of Youth Input Resellers in Kenya," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322141, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Nouran Abdelhamid Abdelgawwad & Abdelmonem Lotfy Mohamed Kamal, 2023. "Contributions of Investment and Employment to the Agricultural GDP Growth in Egypt: An ARDL Approach," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-16, August.
    3. Pracht, Wyatt & Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob, 2023. "The Impacts of an Employment Offer on the Aspirations of Rural Youth: Experimental Evidence from Kenya," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335612, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Musungu, Arnold L. & Kubik, Zaneta & Qaim, Matin, 2023. "Drought Shocks and Labor Reallocation in Rural Africa: Evidence from Ethiopia," Discussion Papers 338675, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    5. Stemmler, Henry & Meemken, Eva-Marie, 2023. "Greenhouse farming and employment: Evidence from Ecuador," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    decent work; dual economy; gender; productive employment; rural migration; youth employment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J43 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Agricultural Labor Markets
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:anr:reseco:v:14:y:2022:p:267-289. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: http://www.annualreviews.org (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.annualreviews.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.