Beyond land access: How agency mediates the effect of land tenure security on youth agricultural entrepreneurship in Benin?

Land tenure security is widely recognized as a key condition for agricultural investment, yet its role in fostering youth entrepreneurship remains insufficiently theorized. Using survey data from 200 rural youth in Benin, this study examines how land tenure security influences entrepreneurial engagement and through which mechanisms. Drawing on an agency-based framework, we argue that secure land access alone is insufficient to stimulate entrepreneurship unless it strengthens young people’s capacity to act, decide, and invest. Structural equation modeling shows that land tenure security has a positive but modest direct effect on agricultural entrepreneurship, while its strongest influence operates indirectly through youth agency, which emerges as a central mediating mechanism. Youth who perceive greater control over land, stronger social recognition, and higher decision-making autonomy are significantly more likely to engage in entrepreneurial activities. By contrast, restrictive social norms undermine agency and entrepreneurial engagement even in contexts of relatively secure land access. These findings advance entrepreneurship and development scholarship by challenging asset-centered and purely institutional explanations of entrepreneurship, and by demonstrating that institutional reforms shape entrepreneurial outcomes primarily through their effects on agency. The study highlights the need to combine land reforms with interventions that strengthen youth capabilities, aspirations, and social legitimacy in order to foster inclusive rural entrepreneurship.