Policy brief : What is the link between youth unemployment, the life cycle deficit and the demographic dividend in West Africa?

Abstract

In 2020, 15 to 241-year olds accounted for 19.6 per cent of the 397.2 million people living in West Africa. However, 30.4 per cent of these young people, or nearly 23.7 million people were neither employed nor enrolled in formal education or training. This has a significant impact on the life cycle deficit, which is the difference between labour income and consumption expenditure by age. What would be the influence of these young people on regional GDP if they were offered employment opportunities? The ECA-CREG (2020) research report examines, among other things, the opportunity cost of this situation and proposes policy recommendations for West Africa to capitalize on the window of opportunity for the demographic dividend opened since 1996.