Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates informal youth businesses in the mobile telephony sector and the extent to which business in the mobile telephony sector is influencing transition to adulthood among the youth in the city of Accra.

Paper long abstract:

Liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, which brought about private mobile telephony operators, has opened a new window of opportunity for many young people who are running informal businesses in the sector. However, the mobile telephony literature seem to focus mostly on the various uses to which mobile phones are put with little coverage given to informal entrepreneurial opportunities in the sector. Similarly, very little empirical research has been devoted to what is happening in the lives of many young people running businesses within Ghanaian, and African city settings. Drawing on a combination of quantitative and qualitative life course interviews conducted with young business owners in the mobile telephony sector in Accra, this paper investigates the extent to which running businesses in the mobile telephony sector influences transition to adulthood among the youth. The paper opens up by exposing the diversity of informal youth entrepreneurial activities in the mobile telephony sector and then argues strongly that engaging in business ventures in the mobile telephony sector is having a positive influence in the transition situation of the young people in the sector. The paper concludes by drawing implications with regard to public support generally for youth businesses.