Understanding Barriers to Accessing Skills Development and Employment for Youth in Argentina and South Africa: Synthesis Report
By Peliwe Lolwana, Siphelo Ngcwangu, Claudia Jacinto, Verónica Millenaar and María Eugenia Martín
This synthesis is based on two national studies concerning youth transitions to work and the labour market, within the framework of the project Understanding Barriers to Accessing Skills Development and Employment for Youth in Argentina and South Africa. The studies analysed three main issues:
- The quality of the productive activities that youngsters get, such as jobs, employment, volunteering,and learnerships
- Policies regarding work preparation and deployment, including the conceptual approaches, guidelines and designs of implementation, their similarities, and contradictions
- Youth opportunities in the construction and wine production sectors.
Emphasis was placed on knowledge of the relationships between the various actors within society, state, non-state, public and private national and international institutions. The report presents the theoretical and methodological framework shared by both studies and then presents the two cases. In each of them:
- The context of each country is described in order to highlight the social, educational and labour backgrounds
- Youth employment at the national level and in specific sectors of the economy is analysed from a quantitative perspective
- The policies addressing skills development and work in the national public governance system as well as in international development cooperation are identified and classified
- The Construction and Wine Production sectors are analysed and the strategies of implementation and performance developed by institutions and programmes that support the above policies are discussed.
The study makes a crucial contribution to the national and international literature on skills and youth development by adopting a South–South–North perspective.
A specific country report concerning South Africa is also available to download.
Ms. Peliwe Lolwana is the Former Director of the Centre for Researching Education and Labour (REAL), University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Mr. Siphelo Ngcwangu is an Associate Researcher, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Claudia Jacinto is the Coordinator of PREJET (Programa de Estudios de Juventud, Educación y Trabajo) at IDES (Instituto de Desarrollo Economico y Social) and Senior Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires.Verónica Millenaar, is IDES' Associate Researcher. María Eugenia Martin is CONICET's Fellow Researcher at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. PREJET team members participating in the study: Alejandro Burgos, Delfina Garino, Eugenia Roberti, Mariana Sosa and Carolina Dursi. CONICET doctoral fellows: Lucia D’Angelo, Research Assistant at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo.