Rural-Urban Labor Migration and Youth Employment: Investigating the Relevance of Nigeria’s Agricultural Sector in Employment Generation

Abstract

Rural-urban drift and lack of youths’ interest in agriculture among others are possible reasons leading to the gradual disappearance of the Nigerian agriculture sector. The increasing rate of unemployment is an indication that rural-urban interactions and employment play an important role in rural transformation. Due to paucity of national data on rural-urban and labor migration, this study mainly relied on available secondary information complemented by focus group data collected from selected migrant youths who were into motorcycle riding in Ibadan in Oyo State and Abeokuta in Ogun State. Findings showed that youths migrated from rural areas to urban in search for better jobs, from agriculture to non-agriculture because the former is rigorous and tough even though with high potentials of generating employments through value chain.