YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT AND INFORMALIZATION OF DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

In this paper, there is a theoretical elucidation of how development and youth unemployment in Nigeria informally takes place by acting upon a sociological basis. This means that the constant high unemployment of the youth is not merely a labor market phenomenon but a structural feature of the Nigerian postcolonial development course, which is characterized by ineffective industrialization, rentier accretion and peripheral incorporation into the world system. As part of the conceptualization of the study, the informality is theorized as a central form of economic participation rather than a marginal or a transitional form of economic participation that relies on political economy, dependency theory and development sociology. This paper puts youth unemployment into a context of bigger processes of state retreat, neoliberal restructuring and uneven development and demonstrates how these processes make precarious work the rule of thumb, reproduce social inequalities, and constrain youth agency. The research contributes to the theoretical discourses on underdevelopment, labor precarity, and postcolonial state formation, by describing informality as a mode of development, rather than an exception, and by highlighting the importance of pursuing employment-based policies, structural change, and interventions by the state in dealing with the livelihoods of the youths in Nigeria.