Youth wage employment and parental education in Malawi

Figures & data

Table 1: Malawi's economic and employment profile

Indicator	2004	2011
GDP growth	6.2^a	7.5^b
Poverty headcount	52.4	50.7
Share of youth in total population	19.6	18.3
Overall unemployment rate	7.8	9.3
Youth unemployment rate	12.6	15.2
Overall share in wage employment	9.3	13.4
Youth's share in wage employment	8.7	6.4
Overall wage employment and type of employer
Private company	30.2	31.8
Private individual	37.1	33.0
Government/parastatal	18.5	28.2
Other	14.3	6.9
Youth wage employment and type of employer
Private company	23.3	23.6
Private individual	59.1	60.9
Government/parastatal	3.7	11.1
Other	13.9	4.4

Source: NSO (2005, 2012a, 2012b).

Notes: Other includes those employed by church/religious organisations, political parties, public works programmes, and non-governmental organisations. The youth are defined as those aged 15 to 24.

^aAverage gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2004–07.

^bAverage GDP growth for 2008–11.

Table 2: Parental education and youth (aged 15 to 35) education

	Female youth	Male youth	All youth
Same as mother's	70.02	55.20	63.07
Mother less educated	25.85	42.08	33.46
Mother more educated	4.13	2.72	3.47
Total	100.00	100.00	100.00
Same as father's	65.35	55.16	60.57
Father less educated	19.67	35.06	26.88
Father more educated	14.99	9.78	12.55
Total	100.00	100.00	100.00
Observations	5451	4815	10 266

Table 3: Descriptive statistics of variables by status in wage employment

Variable	All	In wage employment		Difference (no – yes)
		No	Yes
Age of individual	26.20	25.82	28.06	–2.24***
Male	0.47	0.41	0.75	–0.34***
Own education	3.75	2.99	7.44	–4.45***
Father's education	2.38	2.03	4.08	–2.05***
Mother's education	1.03	0.78	2.24	–1.46***
North	0.20	0.21	0.18	0.03**
Centre	0.36	0.37	0.35	0.01
Urban	0.23	0.18	0.48	–0.30***
Observations	10 266	8514	1752	10 266

Notes: ***Significant at 1%.

**Significant at 5%.

*Significant at 10%.

Table 4: Likelihood ratio tests and inter-cluster correlation coefficients

Model	Hypothesis	LR statistic	Conclusion	ICC
				o˘1	o˘2
All		236.97		0.17	0.01
Female		15.94		0.13	0.04
Male		172.24		0.20	0.02

Table 5: Marginal effects of wage employment for the youth

Variable	All	Female	Male
Age of individual	0.0059*** (0.0006)	0.0025*** (0.0004)	0.0123*** (0.0014)
Male	0.1355*** (0.0087)
Own education	0.0090*** (0.0007)	0.0063*** (0.0006)	0.0147*** (0.0015)
Father's education	0.0004 (0.0007)	0.0002 (0.0005)	0.0004 (0.0018)
Mother's education	0.0033*** (0.0009)	0.0017*** (0.0006)	0.0037* (0.0024)
North	−0.0333*** (0.0110)	−0.0183*** (0.0045)	−0.0583** (0.0284)
Centre	−0.0153 (0.0109)	−0.0060 (0.0048)	−0.0371 (0.0263)
Urban	0.1369*** (0.0205)	0.0397*** (0.0081)	0.2604*** (0.0370)
Observations	10 266	5451	4815

Note: Standard errors in parentheses.

***Significant at 1%.

**Significant at 5%.

*Significant at 10%.

Table 6: Own education, and own education–parental education interaction effects

Variable	Female	Male
Own education	0.0057*** (0.0006)	0.0134*** (0.0016)
Own education × father's education	0.0002 (0.0002)	0.0003 (0.0003)
Own education × mother's education	0.0004** (0.0002)	0.0006* (0.0004)
Observations	5451	4815

Note: Standard errors in parentheses.

***Significant at 1%.

**Significant at 5%.

*Significant at 10%.

NSO (National Statistics Office), 2005. Integrated household survey 2004–2005. Volume I: Household socio-economic characteristics. National Statistics Office, Zomba, Malawi.

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NSO (National Statistics Office), 2012a. Integrated household survey 2004–2005. Household socio-economic characteristics report. National Statistics Office, Zomba, Malawi.

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NSO (National Statistics Office), 2012b. Quarterly statistical Bulletin. National Statistics Office, Zomba, Malawi.

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