Factors Limiting Youth Entrepreneurship
Social limitations hindered youth ability to access and utilise resources necessary for successful entrepreneurship. Studies by ILO on youth and entrepreneurship corroborate this finding suggesting social and cultural barriers to youth start-ups (Schoof, 2006). In Gulu, these barriers were pronounced in connection with access to land. As previous studies have shown, elders control over land limits youth choices on utilisation (Gichimu and Njeru 2014:3; Whyte and Acio 2017:23).
Socio-cultural patterns of land access affected rural male and female youth differently. The ability to operate a profitable business was inhibited by market factors and limited supportive infrastructure and training. Finally, and perhaps most striking, was the emphasis interlocutors placed on personal resources or ‘mindset’ as a limitation.
Gender and access to land
Several participants reported on cultural issues as hindering youth entrepreneurship mostly in rural areas. These cultural factors limited access to resources and decision-making arenas. They mostly mentioned early marriages, single motherhood, restricted land ownership and social exclusion from opportunities. Female youth were affected by these challenges since they were prone to divorce, separation, single motherhood, and marginalisation. The female participants were not permitted to own land and undertake investments on land. Those who were married mostly relied on their husbands for decision-making. Their husbands had powers of how to utilise even the funds provided by government. Female participants indicated that children they produced while at parents’ home were discriminated and denied rights to land ownership; such children were regarded as ‘foreigners’[3] . Some divorced women were denied land for farming since they belonged to another family (husband’s home), yet these homes disregarded them. Land access and utilisation were not an entitlement for them but a prerogative of clan members:
Once we leave our homes for marriage, we are not supposed to own land. The culture proposes that we should only own at our husbands’ homes. In case of divorce, the children we produce are also denied land that they are ‘bastards’, we are just like this…uncles and brothers tell us that we take them where they belong (FGD Female Participant, Bungatira Subcounty).
Culturally, the children born after divorce are denied land, thus remaining landless and poor. They are treated as foreigners (locally referred to as ‘lutino luk’), however hardworking one is, no land for productive agriculture, so they remain miserable and take refuge in towns, and you know the life there (Female, Unyama Subcounty).
Communal land ownership was reported a major obstacle to investment in agriculture; one male participant emphasised that family members inhibit individual youth from utilising available land. However, some male youth disagreed, revealing that in their families they can utilise the land. Access to land was a greater challenge for young women, who were expected to marry and gain land through a man. For those who did marry, their husbands often tried to exert control over funds, thus demotivating them. Children who were not recognized by their fathers faced difficulties in accessing land. The prohibitions, discrimination, and cultural rigidities around land made this resource uncertain for young people (Whyte and Acio 2017:23).
[3] Stereotyping on children who are born while women are not officially married or divorced.