Factors affecting Youth Employment in Ngong and Rongai Wards in Kajiado North Constituency, Kajiado County, Kenya

Résumé

This study analyzed factors affecting youth employment in Ngong and Ongata Rongai wards in
Kajiado North Constituency, Kenya. The study was guided by four specific objectives: to find
out national and county government initiatives’ effect on youth employment; establish whether
life-skills training affects youth employment; examine whether cultural dynamics affects youth
employment; and find out whether mentorship training affected youth employment. The study
applied the descriptive research design targeting a population of 33,326 respondents consisting
of the two youth officers in Kajiado North Sub-County and youth from the 2 wards in which 395
participants were selected using stratified simple random sampling. The data was collected using
primary and secondary sources, where a questionnaire was used to gather data. The results
showed that a majority of the youths were not employed. The correlation results indicated that
there was a positive and statistically significant association between government interventions,
life skills, cultural dynamics, mentorship training, and youth employment implying that these
variables moved in the same direction. The linear regression analysis revealed that the model
was statistically significant as shown by p=0.000. The report for regression results showed a
significance level of less than 0.05. An increase in government interventions and mentorship
training resulted in an increase in youth employment and this was statistically significant
(P=0.000) An increase in life skills resulted in an increase in youth employment (P=0.149). An
increase in cultural dynamics resulted in a reduction in youth employment but this was not
significant with the value of (P=0.959). The study recommends that monitoring and evaluation of
county and national government interventions be carried out, enforcement of mentorship
programs through regulatory framework and provision of more information on how to implement
and measure a mentorship program.