Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) in Ethiopia: a promising practice to examine systemic economic injustices

Youth unemployment in Ethiopia is a widespread problem that threatens the country's economic and political stability. This quantitative article, driven by the active participation of the youth, aims to provide insight into the national context of youth unemployability in Ethiopia. Methodologically, we conducted a quantitative analysis of secondary data collected as part of a national youth-focused project in Ethiopia between 2021 and 2023 using a participatory action research (YPAR) framework. YPAR serves as the theoretical foundation that undergirds this analysis. Regarding the demographic characteristics of the participants, 3,215 youth were surveyed about their employment experiences. The data reported in this article comes from 545 survey respondents who were higher education students enrolled in 10 universities and six colleges across Ethiopia. Among the respondents, 52.1% were women and 47.9% were men. The respondents were aged between 18 and 29, with 13.5% falling into the 18–19, 58.5% in the 20–24, and 28% in the 25–29 age brackets. We conducted a descriptive analysis: all non-Likert categorical variables and demographic questions were evaluated using frequency and percentage computations, while means, medians, and standard deviations were generated for the Likert-scaled questions to provide insight into the participants' responses. The findings from this analysis can help education researchers and practitioners understand that a major stakeholder group is missing from policy development conversations in Ethiopia: students. We conclude by discussing how YPAR, emphasizing youth participation, can be helpful for future research and policy development about employment for Ethiopian university graduates.