- Care Economy Emerges as New Front in Ghana’s Youth Employment Strategy
Ghana is preparing to make a significant bet on the care economy as part of its response to persistent youth unemployment, with the government targeting close to 100,000 jobs through a new domestic care programme expected to be launched next year.
The initiative, to be implemented under the Youth Employment Agency, marks an attempt to broaden Ghana’s employment strategy beyond conventional public-sector recruitment and traditional youth employment schemes into a labour-intensive services industry that policymakers believe could absorb large numbers of young people entering the workforce.
Minister for Youth Development and Empowerment George Opare-Addo said the programme would form part of a wider set of interventions aimed at reducing unemployment during President John Dramani Mahama’s four-year term.
“Next year, under the YEA, we’ll be launching the domestic care economy, and that alone is supposed to employ close to 100,000 young people. Clearly, clearly, we will reduce the unemployment rate,” Mr Opare-Addo said.
The scale of the target makes the proposal economically significant. Creating 100,000 positions would provide a sizeable employment channel at a time when Ghana faces the more difficult stage of economic recovery: translating improvements in headline macroeconomic indicators into jobs, incomes and better living standards.
Mr Opare-Addo acknowledged that youth unemployment remains a particular challenge, even where broader labour-market indicators are improving.
“When the Ghana Statistical Service put out their figures, you see that unemployment has generally come down, and it means that our policies are working, but you will also see that there is a small increase in youth unemployment, and the reason is that the youth bulge is big and that is where our population is growing,” he said.
That demographic pressure goes to the heart of Ghana’s employment challenge.
Economic growth alone is not enough if the sectors driving expansion do not create employment fast enough to absorb the number of young people entering the labour force each year. Ghana therefore needs not merely stronger growth, but growth that is considerably more employment-intensive.
The care economy could provide one route. Care work includes childcare, elderly care, disability support, household assistance and other personal-care services. Much of this activity already exists across Ghanaian households, but a large share remains informal, poorly regulated and frequently unpaid or underpaid.
Turning part of that activity into a structured labour market could have consequences far beyond the headline number of jobs created.
A properly designed system could professionalise work that has traditionally been regarded as informal domestic labour, establishing training requirements, certification, employment standards and clearer mechanisms connecting workers with households and institutions that require care.
That distinction matters. If Ghana simply recruits 100,000 people onto a government payroll, the programme could quickly become another sizeable recurrent expenditure commitment.
But if government uses the programme to create a functioning private care market — training workers, certifying them and connecting them to households, hospitals, childcare centres, elderly-care facilities and specialised care companies — its longer-term economic value could be substantially greater.
The care economy could also unlock employment elsewhere. Affordable and reliable childcare or elderly-care services can allow other household members to spend more time in paid employment, education or entrepreneurship.
That is particularly relevant to women, who continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid care responsibilities in many households.
In that sense, one care job can potentially enable another person to participate more fully in the labour market. The economic return could therefore extend beyond the workers directly counted under the YEA programme.
But the key distinction will be between job creation and sustainable employment.
Ghana has implemented numerous state-supported employment initiatives over successive administrations. Their economic impact has often depended on what happens when direct government support ends.
A temporary placement can reduce unemployment statistically for a period, but it does not necessarily create a durable livelihood.
The more difficult objective is to build skills and market demand strong enough for participants to remain economically active without indefinite public subsidy.
That places financing at the centre of the care programme. If government remains responsible for salaries indefinitely, 100,000 workers could represent a substantial fiscal obligation.
A more sustainable model would use public resources principally to establish the market: training and certifying workers, creating standards, building digital matching platforms and potentially providing temporary support while private demand develops.
Households and institutions that can afford professional care would gradually become the ultimate purchasers of the service.
There is also the question of what kind of jobs Ghana wants to create. Employment figures alone do not show whether workers earn decent incomes, receive pensions or social protection, operate under safe conditions or have opportunities for career development.
Those questions become particularly important in domestic care. Workers may operate in private homes, where conventional workplace supervision is limited and risks of exploitation, harassment or excessive working hours may be harder to detect.
If the government wants the care economy to become a serious employment sector, labour protections will need to develop alongside recruitment.
That could include written contracts, minimum training requirements, defined working hours, social security contributions, grievance procedures and safeguards for both workers and clients.
Professionalisation would also require training. A credible national care workforce could need recognised qualifications covering childcare, elderly care, first aid, disability assistance, safeguarding, basic health support and emergency response.
Ghana could eventually develop a pool of internationally employable care workers. Demand for nurses, elderly-care assistants and other care professionals is rising in many ageing economies. Properly regulated skills development could therefore create another route for labour mobility and remittance earnings.
That opportunity would have to be managed carefully to avoid simply training workers for export while domestic care needs remain unmet.
The government’s broader youth employment strategy appears to recognise that Ghana cannot rely exclusively on the formal corporate sector or public payroll to absorb its growing working-age population.
Apprenticeship, labour exchange and graduate-support interventions are also being pursued, with the stated objective of aligning skills more closely with actual labour-market demand.
The success of that shift will depend on whether government builds markets or merely programmes. That distinction is crucial. A government programme exists for as long as budgetary allocations continue.
A labour market becomes sustainable when employers and consumers are willing to pay for skills because those skills produce measurable economic value. For Ghana’s care economy, the 100,000-job target will therefore be only the first metric.
How many of the workers will still be employed several years later? What will they earn? How many will transition into privately financed jobs? Will households be able to afford professional care? Will businesses emerge around childcare and elderly care? Will the workers have recognised qualifications and social protection?
Those answers will determine whether the programme represents structural labour-market reform or another temporary response to unemployment.
The potential is nevertheless significant. Ghana already has demand for childcare, elderly support and other domestic services. What it largely lacks is a formal market capable of connecting that demand to trained workers under consistent professional standards.
Building that market could simultaneously create jobs, support families and increase labour-force participation.
The economic opportunity lies precisely in formalising work that is already being performed but is often invisible in conventional employment statistics. That is why the care economy deserves to be considered more than a social policy intervention.
But the government’s biggest challenge will be resisting the temptation to measure success solely by how many people are enrolled. The real test is whether Ghana can convert 100,000 placements into 100,000 sustainable livelihoods.
If it succeeds, the domestic care economy could become an important new source of employment while helping thousands of other Ghanaians participate more fully in productive work. If it fails, the target risks becoming another impressive employment number whose long-term economic value disappears when government financing ends.
