Entrepreneurship Education and Graduate Labour-Market Outcomes in Nigeria: Longitudinal Evidence and Implications for Economic Diversification

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is a higher education solution to the problem of unemployment in Nigeria, yet there is limited evidence of labor-market consequences. This study examined associations between degree-level entrepreneurship education and post-NYSC paid employment, business ownership, and employer status. Ten states were included within a four wave observational cohort. With 9,304 baseline respondents, 1,271 (13.66% retention; 86.34% attrition) reached endline of which 1,244 were exposure-classifiable. Outcomes were evaluated using multivariable logistic regression and sensitivity analyses; employee count was evaluated using negative-binomial regression. It was not associated with paid employment (N = 970; OR = 1.073, 95% CI [0.783, 1.470], p = .661) or business ownership (N = 970; OR = 1.236, 95% CI [0.931, 1.642], p = .143), with stable sensitivity results. Employer status showed a positive, non-significant association in the parsimonious model among business owners (N = 404; OR = 1.561, 95% CI [0.943, 2.584], p = .083). Expanded model was nominally significant (OR = 1.755, p = .047), but sensitivity results were mixed and the bootstrap interval crossed the null. Entrepreneurship education was not significantly associated with employee count (IRR = 1.484, 95% CI [0.893, 2.468], p = .128). No strong relationship is found between degree-level entrepreneurship education and paid employment or business entry. The good news about the positive employer-status scaling is that it is not a proof of a proven scaling mechanism, but rather a hypothesis generation activity. The economic-diversification implications, therefore, are interpretive, and do not represent a quantifiable impact on Nigeria's overall economy.