Social entrepreneurship and future employment in Nigeria

Abstract Background To 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 Data This 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. Method The study engaged descriptive statistics to estimate logit regression and propensity score matching (PSM) to achieve its objective. Result The 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. Conclusion From 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.