Assessing the socio-economic impact of youth engagement in agricultural enterprise for employment creation and poverty alleviation

Figures & data

Figure 1. Map of Umzimvubu Local Municipality. Source: Umzimvubu Local Municipality (IDP, 2014/2015).

Table 1. Socio-economic characteristics of youth participants and non-participants.

	Youth participants (n = 135)	Non-youth participants (n = 75)	Overall (n = 210)
Characteristics	Mean	Mean	Mean	Chi-square
Years spent in school	12.45	9.43	10.94	0.004***
Age	0.25	0.30	0.275	0.016**
Farm size (Ha)	3.21	2.80	3.00	0.186
Farming experiences (year)	10.44	2.36	7.42	0.321
Household size	5.00	8.00	7.00	0.012**
Characteristics	Youth participants (n = 135)	Non-youth participants (n = 75)	Overall (n = 210)	T-test
Gender (male)	0.68	0.58	0.63	0.023**
Land access (inheritance)	0.59	0.58	0.59	0.008***
Employment (unemployed)	0.48	0.56	0.52	0.015**
Extension services	0.48	0.41	0.55	0.000***
Access to credit (no)	0.62	0.56	0.59	0.013**
Occupation (self-employed)	0.78	0.28	0.53	0.033**

Note. Represents a significant level at **p ≤ 0.05; ***p ≤ 0.001.

Figure 2. Types of agricultural enterprises youth were engaged on.

Figure 3. Sources of financial support for youth engaged in agricultural enterprises.

Table 2. Factors influencing youth participation in agricultural enterprises.

Variables	Coefficient	SE	p > z
Age	0.078	0.046	0.012**
Gender (male)	0.434	0.927	0. 004***
Household size	0.504	0.085	0.037**
Years spent in school	0.901	0.334	0.014**
Access to credit	−0.643	0.188	0.018**
Membership in farm organization	0.786	0.309	0.015**
Land access	0.592	0.783	0.013**
Extension services	0.792	0.446	0.019**
Constant	0.047	0.082	1.976
n	210
LRX^2 (p > X^2)	55.61 (0.00)
Pseudo- R^2	0.72
Log-likelihood	= −121.802

Note. SE: standard error; *, **, *** represent significance at 10, 5 and 1%.

Table 3. Effects of youth participation on agricultural enterprises.

Variable	Mean	Std Err	Min	Max
Propensity score	0.804	0.234	0.112	0.993
Matching method	$\mathit{\text{ATT}}$ Participation in agricultural enterprises	ATT Non-participation in agricultural enterprises	Differences	$\text{Std Err}.$	$t$
Nearest neighbor matching (NNM)	1779.67	690.88	1088.78	351.76	0.017**
Kernel based matching (KBM)	1572.05	700.17	871.88	512.35	−0.013**

Figure 4. (a) Kernel density plot; (b) Box plot.

Data availability statement

The anonymized recorded data is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.