Youth perspectives: migration, poverty, and the future of farming in rural Ethiopia

This chapter highlights the opportunities and constraints for rural Ethiopian youth based on gender and class choices to migrate to urban locations. Ethiopia is an important case study because while it has one of the largest rural populations in the world, it is also rapidly transitioning from subsistence-based farming to commercial enterprises. This chapter provides evidence towards the evolving geographies of opportunities that do not homogenize a diversity of rural and urban contexts and experiences of youth by taking a differentiated view of young people who have uneven access to resources and networks. Migration itself is less of a choice made for youth's own benefit or because they do not want to farm, but because of food insecurity, diminishing income-generating opportunities and land sizes, as well as gender discrimination.