Kenya: Most Kenyan Youth See Govt As Failing On Their Top Priorities

23 May 2025
Afrobarometer (Accra)
By Paul Kamau, Eunice Karimi and Erick Murithi

More than four in 10 young citizens say they have considered emigrating.

Key findings

  • Kenyan youth (aged 18-35) have more education than their elders. Eight in 10 (80%) have secondary or post-secondary qualifications, compared to 43%-58% among older cohorts.
  • However, youth are also more likely to be unemployed: 43% say they are looking for work, compared to 23%-32% of the middle-aged. o Aside from the country's general economic situation and scarcity of jobs, young respondents cite a lack of training, a mismatch between education and job requirements, an unwillingness by some young people to perform certain types of work, and a lack of experience required by employers as the most important barriers to their employment. o Given their choice of jobs, six in 10 Kenyan youth (60%) would like to start their own businesses. Next in popularity is working for the government or public sector (23%). o If the government could increase its spending on programmes to help the youth, job creation would be the top priority for young people.
  • Health is the most important problem that young Kenyans say their government must address, followed by the increasing cost of living, unemployment, education, and corruption.
  • On these priority issues, youth offer mixed reviews of their government's performance, ranging from strikingly low levels of approval on creating jobs (22%) and improving living standards of the poor (26%) to majority approval on education (59%).
  • A majority of young people see their country as moving in "the wrong direction" (55%) and describe economic conditions as "fairly bad" or "very bad" (56%). o But six in 10 (61%) think things will get better during the coming year.
  • More than four in 10 young Kenyans (43%) say they have considered emigrating, including 25% who have given it "a lot" of thought. Those who have considered emigrating cite finding jobs and escaping economic hardship as the key reasons.

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About 80% of Kenya's population is aged 35 years or below. Those between 18 and 35 years make up 36% of the population (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2022). Kenya's economy can gain immensely from this demographic if the youth are gainfully engaged and possess the right skills (Kenya Vision 2030, 2021).

However, this youth bulge has also been described as "a ticking time bomb" as young people face unemployment, a mismatch of skills and jobs, and a lack of entrepreneurial skills that prevent them from being catalysts for sustainable and transformative development (Okello & Iberi, 2023; National Council for Population and Development, 2017; Onsomu, Munga, Ngugi, & Nyaboro, 2023). With up to 800,000 youth entering the job market each year, youth unemployment is a critical policy issue in Kenya (Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, 2024), as it is throughout much of the continent (Ghambi & Torsu, 2025; Sanny, van Wyk-Khosa, & Asunka, 2024; World Bank, 2023).

Kenya has developed national policies and programmes aimed at upskilling youth, increasing access to credit, and creating jobs, including the National Youth Policy of 2007, the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (2009), the Youth Employment Opportunities Project, the Ajira Digital Programme, the Uwezo Fund, the Kazi Mtaani Initiative, government internships, and the Talanta Hela initiative.

Yet many youth feel left out of Kenya's economic transformation, as became strikingly clear in the 2024 "Gen-Z protests" triggered by proposed taxes but responding more broadly to a lack of economic opportunity and poor governance (Monyae & Shilaho, 2024; Okello & Iberi, 2023).

The 2023 Global Youth Development Index ranks Kenya 143rd out of 185 countries on indicators of employment and opportunity, education, equality and inclusion, health and well-being, peace and security, and political and civic participation (Commonwealth, 2024).

The Afrobarometer Round 10 survey, conducted in April-May 2024, offers some insights into the situation of Kenya's youth. Findings show that young people are more educated than their elders, but also more likely to be unemployed. Health is the most important priority for government action, according to young Kenyans, followed by the cost of living, unemployment, education, and corruption.

While youth offer mixed assessments of the government's performance on these priority issues, most see the country as headed in "the wrong direction," and evaluations of economic conditions are largely negative. A majority of young people, however, are optimistic that things will get better in the near future.

Even so, a growing share of youth say they have seriously contemplated emigration, most often in search of better work and economic opportunity.

Paul Kamau Paul Kamau is the national investigator for Kenya.

Eunice Karimi Eunice Karimi is a research assistant at the Institute for Development Studies.

Erick Murithi Erick Murithi is Afrobarometer's data quality officer for East Africa

Read the original article on Afrobarometer.

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