The Determinants of Youth Unemployment: A Panel Data Analysis of OECD Countries

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine some of the key factors affecting youth employment from 2000-2015. Youth unemployment rate (YU) was the dependent variable while consumer price index (INF), domestic gross savings (GS), labor productivity (LP) and economic growth rate (GR) were the independent variables. Data from 31 OECD countries were obtained from World Bank (WB) and OECD databases. Panel Data Analysis was used to analyze the data. The results show that growth, inflation, and savings affect youth unemployment negatively while labor productivity affects youth employment positively. It is therefore concluded that growth, inflation, savings and labor productivity are among the key determinants of youth unemployment.

Keywords

• youth unemployment
• growth rate
• inflation
• total domestic savings
• labor productivity
• panel data analysis