Determinants of youth unemployment in Tanzania.

This study examines the performance and determinants of youth unemployment in Tanzania using Integrated Labour Force Survey of Tanzania for 2006 conducted in Mainland Tanzania. In analysing the issue of youth unemployment, the logit model has been used, with a series of independent variables. The model shows an important role for youth's education level, age of a youth, youth's gender, and youth’s place of residence, headship status of a youth and youth's marital status in determining youth employment status. The findings show that being married, male, head of the household, presence of paid and self-employed in the household, significantly reduces the probability of a youth being unemployed. On the other hand, youth's education level and living in urban significantly increases the probability of a youth being unemployed. Furthermore, the results indicate that the likelihood of unemployment tends to decrease as age of a youth increases. The government may need to enhance gender equality in access to education, training and employment in order to reduce high unemployment among young women. Moreover, there is a need for the government to focus attention on the rural-urban drift in order to deal with the problem of rural urban migration and consequently reduce high youth unemployment in urban areas. It is also important to restructure some human capital development and labour market issues that relate to employment in order to match skills with labour market demand.