Unemployment, inequality and poverty are the scaffoldings which conspicuously mirror the impediments
to development in any human society. Of the three, joblessness or unemployment serves as the
hinge on which other challenges rest. This becomes more problematic when an energetic youth population
remains idle when they are not supposed to be. Thus the paper assesses the factors contributing
to rural youth unemployment in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. It specifically analyses socio-economic
and institutional factors influencing rural youth unemployment in the study area. A multi-stage
sampling procedure was used to sample 105 youths aged between 18-35 years in two communities
within the Okavango Delta area. Open and close-ended questionnaires were administered to elicit information
from the respondents. We summarised the data obtained using descriptive statistics. Pearson
product-moment correlation was used to test the directional relationship between youth unemployment
and selected explanatory variables embedded in socio-economic and institutional factors. A non-parametric
test was also conducted using Chi square analysis to determine the associations between the
dependent and nominal variables investigated. The findings show that most of the youths (57.1%) were
unemployed (57.1%) of which 65.6% of the jobless individuals constituted the female respondents.
Correlation analysis indicates that level of education (r = -0.208; p ≤ 0.034); training (t = 3.831; p ≤
0.000); access to information (r = 0.315; p ≤ 0.001); acquisition of entrepreneurial skills (r = -0.388; p
≤ 0.000) and youth perceptions towards government programmes (r = 0.289; p ≤ 0.003) are explanatory
variables influencing rural youth unemployment in the study area. Chi square analysis also shows that
gender (X2
= 4.815; p ≤ 0.05) had a significant association with youth unemployment. Thus education
or training, and access to relevant information are crucial policy issues for alleviating rural youth unemployment
in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.