Attitude of youth towards self-employment: Evidence from university students in Yemen

PLoS One. 2021 Sep 13;16(9):e0257358. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257358. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

This study assesses whether final-year undergraduate students at Sana'a University, Yemen intend to start their own business. The study employs the theory of planned behaviour and two environmental factors to explore whether the theory's behavioural factors and the contextual factors of Lüthje & Franke's model have an impact on students' intentions to start their own business. A questionnaire survey with a random sample of 335 final-year university students from the largest public university in Yemen has been conducted. Data has been analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation and structural equation modelling. The findings indicate that students' perceptions of entrepreneurship have a strong, direct impact on self-employment intention, excluding social norms and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Students' self-employment intention is directly affected by perceived barriers and support factors in the entrepreneurship-related context. To increase their entrepreneurial abilities, university students require more training and education to be able to start new businesses. Developing entrepreneurial skills among citizens may improve the societal norms of business. The outcomes provide significant implications for policymakers, academic communities and international bodies.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Attitude*
  • Employment / psychology*
  • Humans
  • Students / statistics & numerical data
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Universities / statistics & numerical data
  • Yemen
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The publication fee of this research was funded by Jilin University. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.