Social Networks, Social Support and the Working Lives of Self-Employed Young People in Ghana and Nigeria

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how the social ties of self-employed youth in Ghana and Nigeria shape their transition into self-employment and impact their working lives. While many young people in the West African labour market are self-employed, there has been a lack of research into the social context in which they work. This dissertation maps the social context in which self-employed youth in Ghana and Nigeria work and answers the questions: How do the family ties of self-employed youth shape their transition into self-employment and their working lives? How and why do self-employed youth engage or not engage with business associations? What is the relationship between the social ties, social support and the job quality of self-employed youth? What role did the networks of self-employed youth play during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis? These questions are answered with a cross-national comparative mixed-methods approach that involved conducting 57 semi-structured interviews with self-employed youth in Ibadan, Nigeria and Kumasi, Ghana as well as a survey administered to 1010 self-employed youth in both cities. This study found that family ties were critical to providing monetary, material, informational and emotional support to self-employed youth though men, those from poorer families, those whose family members did not own businesses in the same sector were less likely to receive family support. Self-employed youth without family support found it more difficult to access the support and resources to start and run their businesses. This study also found that business associations occupied a complicated place in the working lives of self-employed youth with some viewing them as serving the interests of only a powerful few while others found business associations to be a helpful source of information, networks and resources. Further, the results obtained showed that potential material support was positively associated with extrinsic job quality while potential informational/emotional support was more associated with intrinsic job quality, though demographic and business characteristics especially the sector in which the self-employed youth worked appeared to be a greater predictor of job quality than either their social network characteristics or social support. Finally, this study showed the important role that social ties through religious organizations, friends and family played in supporting self-employed youth through the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in the absence of government support. While most studies on self-employed workers have focused on comparing them with waged employees, this study takes a different approach by examining the heterogeneous experiences of self-employment in the low and middle-income country contexts of Ghana and Nigeria providing useful information to guide policy that will be tailored to the varying needs of self-employed youth and the contexts in which they work.