Comparative Analysis of Young People’s Access to the Labor Market in Benin and Togo: An Application of the Inequality of Opportunity Index

Abstract

In low- and middle-income countries such as West African countries, access to youth labour market is characterized by significant inequalities. But it is rare to find in the context of the West African countries, empirical studies which have focused on inequalities of opportunity on the issue of young people's transition from school to work in Benin, Liberia and Togo. To fill this gap, we estimated the scope of the inequality of opportunities in access to youth labour market by countries and the factors that influence this access by using data from School to Work Transition Survey (SWTS). To achieve the objectives of this paper, we computed the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) using three indicators of access to youth labour market. The three indicators of access were: Occupied with a workweek (employment); has contract occupation (contract) and has work protected with insurance (insurance). We then examined circumstance variables and the individual’s characteristic contributions and differences across countries. The results show that inequality of opportunities varies within and across countries. The inequality of opportunity is much more pronounced in Benin for job opportunities (33.6), contract (40.8) and Liberia for the job opportunity with insurance (49.3). We note that the characteristics of parents contribute more to the inequality of opportunity in the access of young people to a job in Togo compared to the situation in Benin and Liberia. We find also that demographic factors contribute much more to the inequality in access to employment in Liberia (78.02%) compared to Benin (74.26%) and Togo (45.05%). The levels of inequality of opportunities as well as the average coverage and access rates shows that there are still more to do in ensuring equitable access to youth labour market in these countries.