Journal of Christian Religious Studies

The study assesses the socio-economic impact of unemployment on Christian youths in Kaduna State, Nigeria. The study adopted survey research design, specifically, descriptive method. The total population of the study comprised Christian youths in Kaduna state, Nigeria that made up of 1.5 million. Nine hundred and twenty-one (921) respondents were randomly sampled to represent the total population. Questionnaire was the instrument employed for data collection. The data were analyzed using version 20 of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Frequencies and simple percentages were used for demographic variables, mean scores for research questions while independent sample t-test for testing the hypotheses. The findings revealed that, socially, unemployment has negatively led many Christian youths to social vices like thuggery, drug abuse, cultism, fraud and rising crime and also, unemployment has contributed to poverty and economic hardship among Christian youths in Kaduna state, Nigeria. The study recommends that, Christian organizations should promote ethical entrepreneurship that aligns economic survival, moral values and anti-social vices. Equally, government should strengthen youth employment policies through job creation, entrepreneurship funding and vocational training programmes irrespective of one’s faith. Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that: unemployment negatively influences the social well-being of Christian youths, resulting to social withdrawal, increased vulnerability to negative peer influence, social vices and community participation. And also, unemployment has significantly weakened economic stability of Christian youths, leading to financial Unemployment dependency, poverty, inability to meet basic needs and reduced capacity to contribute meaningfully to family responsibilities, church development and community growth

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