Education Language Choice and Youth Entrepreneurship in Chad

Using the third Chadian survey on consumption and the informal sector (ECOSIT III), this study aims to assess the relationship between education language choice and entrepreneurship in Chad. By education language choice, we mean the choice between education in Arabic and education in French. Specifically, the study seeks to evaluate the effect of language of instruction on self-employment. To achieve this objective, we make use of a recursive vicariate profit model to tackle the endogeneity of education choice. Moreover, the propensity score matching approach is also used to check for the robustness of results. Three main conclusions are derived from the analysis: first, those youth who choose Arabiclanguage education are more likely to be an entrepreneur. Second, youth are more likely to be self-employed in Chad. Third, the probability to be self-employed is higher for men than women. Based on this evidence, relevant recommendations are provided to help the Chadian government and their partners to help to design appropriate policies to foster youth entrepreneurship in Chad.