Early labour market transitions of young women in Uganda

Poor educational attainment, early marriages, low age at first birth and poor labour market outcomes continue to be of concern for young women in Uganda. Using the School to Work Transition Surveys (SWTS 2013 and 2015) and the Demographic and Health Surveys (2006 and 2011) for Uganda, this paper descriptively explores links between educational attainment, age of marriage and child-birth and labour market outcomes for young people (15-24 years of age). Overall, we find that young women leave school early (one in every two girls drops out before completion of the education cycle), give birth and/or get married before the legal age of 18 years (median age at marriage and first birth is 16.7 and 17.4 respectively), and a good number -18 percent are inactive (neither participating in the labour market nor attending school). Specifically, the results provided evidence on the critical role of education in transiting to stable/satisfactory employment; compared with those who leave school prematurely; young people who enter the labour market with more education are more likely transition to stable employment. Additional evidence shows that women (25-49 years) whose first birth/marriage was before the age of 20 are less likely to be in professional /technical and managerial occupations and more likely to be engaged in agriculture with less (if any) income accruing to them. This partly confirms the hypothesis that early labour market entry limits young people from accumulating the human capital necessary to get good jobs; and often confines them to less productive and vulnerable jobs.