Unemployment Duration and Youths’ Transition from School to Work in Benin - Is There a Gender Gap?

The issue of youth’s unemployment duration in transition from school to work has attracted a great interest among policy makers in recent years. Young people and particularly young women are the most vulnerable to unemployment that can lead them to reprehensible social behaviors and widespread insecurity. With a special focus on gender, this study aims to investigate the driving factors of youth’s unemployment duration and assess its impact on youth employment in Benin. Data used in this paper are from the School to Work Transition Survey (SWTS) and include a total of 4303 youths aged between 15 and 29. Although the data are cross-sectional, it contains details of the person’s academic and professional background as well as time information. However, the cross-section nature of the data is likely to be able to calculate only short-term effects. Due to the discrete nature of the data, discrete time risk models are estimated and the probability that a transition from unemployment to employment will take place within a given period is determined by the duration of the individual’s unemployment. Findings concluded on an existence of a gender disparity in unemployment duration. Young women are more affected by unemployment and find it challenging to get out from unemployment than young men. The results also suggest that a combination of individual and socio-economic factors as well as professional preferences and attitudes in terms of career objective, completion of an internship and reservation wage have the greatest effect on youths’ unemployment duration. Furthermore, household factors, including father’s education and family well-being, are the main determinants of youth unemployment duration in Benin. In addition, the results strongly indicate that unemployment duration reduces the likelihood of youths to grasp their first job. Findings of the study have important implications for the broad integration of young people into the labor market in Benin. Indeed, given the social and private costs of unemployment, policy makers should target actions toward youths very soon after their training. Indeed, there is a need to facilitate the inclusion of youths and especially young women in financial support programs, internships, entrepreneurship promotion as well as the introduction of career guidance in training programs.