Social entrepreneurship and future employment in Nigeria

Abstract

BackgroundTo cater for the growing global population, the future of employment has been policy discourse. This is mainly because, as the population increases, the demand for employment increases. The danger of a looming crisis may be inevitable if considerable employment opportunities are not created to match population growth. In order to curtail uncertainty in the labour market and secure future employment, increased emphasise is laid on entrepreneurship – the skills to match new ideas to market and societal needs.Aim and DataThis study examines the extent of social entrepreneurship and its impact on future employment in Nigeria by testing the hypothesis stated in a null from as “social entrepreneurship has no significant impact on future employment in Nigeria”. The study utilises data sourced from youth entrepreneurship with innovation (YouWiN) (2019) conducted by the World Bank in conjunction with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of Nigeria.MethodThe study engaged descriptive statistics to estimate logit regression and propensity score matching (PSM) to achieve its objective.ResultThe descriptive statistics show that only 3.15 per cent of entrepreneurship in Nigeria is a social enterprise. In addition, the mean age of business owners is about 31 years, with 83.14 per cent being male. The result from the logit regression shows that ICT utilisation, access to loans, level of education, and gender of business owners are other significant and positive determinants of future employment. The result from the PSM shows that social entrepreneurship is a significant and positive driver of future employment. It shows that social entrepreneurship will contribute not less than 21 per cent to employment in Nigeria in the next five years.ConclusionFrom the analysis, it was revealed that only 3.15 per cent of Nigerian enterprises are social enterprises, which is a possible reason for their little current contribution to present and future employment. More involvement in this sector is capable of improving future employment. In addition, to attain a boost in future employment creation in Nigeria, there has to be a significant contribution in this sector by the youth. In addition, access to ICT by business owners should be enhanced to improve business performance towards contributing to future employment. The government should adopt measures to aid business owners in securing loans to finance business activities and improve their performance.

Social entrepreneurship, technology diffusion and future employment in Nigeria

“…In addition, it enables faster problem-solving and more efficient business development. This is in line with the findings of Osabohien et al (2022a).…”

“…On the other hand, the informal sector of the Nigerian economy is thought to be vital in generating income and improving society’s wellbeing. Included in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria are social enterprises with a social drive and the economic wellbeing of the people at the heart of their operations (Matthew et al , 2020; Osabohien et al , 2022a).…”

“…This has thus brought new opportunities and created flexibility for businesses and individuals (e.g. social networks, searching and sharing information) and better quality of life (Osabohien et al , 2022a). Modern technological tools can potentially decrease costs and increase organisational efficiency (Ahuru et al , 2022).…”

“…Though prior literature (Ahuru et al , 2022; Matthew et al , 2020; Osabohien et al , 2022a; stockey, 2021; van der Westhuizen and Adelakun, 2021) have examined the contribution of entrepreneurship to employment; however, integration of technology diffusion in the concept of social entrepreneurship and employment literature is relatively sparse, to the best of the knowledge of the authors. Therefore, this study is set to fill this gap by investigating how the diffusion of technology by social entrepreneurs impacts future employment in Nigeria.…”

“…This is because it bridges information asymmetry in the labour market. Similarly, Osabohien et al (2022aOsabohien et al ( , 2022b found that social entrepreneurship and business innovation are significant drivers of future employment. In another study, Matthew et al (2020) found that enabling environment, infrastructure and access to ICT tools are crucial for business operations.…”