The Influence of Selected Factors on the Growth and Development of Youth Entrepreneurship in Nairobi County in Kenya

Abstract

Youth entrepreneurship is an emerging area of interest in entrepreneurial study and not yet fully developed in Kenya. This is because entrepreneurship is a critical component of economic growth and business development is becoming the best alternatives for young people facing unemployment in most developing countries. The study intended to establish the influence of selected factors on the growth and development of youth entrepreneurship in Nairobi County. Descriptive analysis was used in transforming the raw data into a form that can be easily understood and interpreted such as mean, frequencies and percentages. The study used a descriptive research design. The study was conducted in the Nairobi city which is the capital city of Kenya and where the headquarters of all government offices are located. The choice of Nairobi city was also influenced by the reason that there was a high population of the youth engaging in entrepreneurship that cut across all 42 tribes in the country. In this study, the population of interest was youth aged between 18 years to 35 years who have established ventures and operate within Nairobi at the time of study. It was also the jobless youth within this age bracket who have not thought of starting any venture within the same area. The study targeted 30252 SMEs in all the 9 sub counties in Nairobi County. Based on Krejcie and Morgan model, 379 SMEs were selected from 30252 SMEs in the study area. The study combined both non probabilistic and probabilistic methods. Area cluster sampling was also used to overcome the problem of high sampling cost associated with simple random sampling. Descriptive and inferential analysis was conducted. The findings of descriptive analysis revealed that there was a slow growth among SMEs owned by the youth in Nairobi County. The study further established that youth enterprises in Nairobi County vi had low credit accessibility. The findings showed that majority of the youth in Kenya failed to grow their enterprises because of the costs and tedious process associated with registration of businesses. The findings also showed that youth with technical skills were better off in growing their enterprises. The findings further implied that mentorship was important to the growth of youth enterprises. The correlation results indicated that credit accessibility was positively and significantly related to growth of youth enterprises. Government policies were found to be positively and significantly associated with growth of youth enterprises. The findings further indicated existence of a strong and significant association between Technical Skills and Growth of Youth Enterprises. In conclusion, the government should not underestimate the contribution of youth enterprises on social and economic wellbeing. The study recommended that financial institutions should develop affordable and innovative measures to secure credit in support for the youth.