The agricultural sector in rural Tanzania is practiced more by elderly people than by the youth. This study examined the determinants of youth occupational choice between farming and non-farming in rural Tanzania. Specifically, the study intended to establish the trend of farming and non-farming occupation choices among youth; analyze the determinants of farming and non-farming occupational choices; and to analyze the impact of youth occupational choice on their subjective welfare. The study used National Panel Surveys of 2008/9, 2010/11, 2012/13, and 2014/15. The determinants of occupational choices were analyzed using the logistic regression model while the effect of occupational choice on subjective welfare was estimated using treatment-effect estimation with nearest-neighbor estimator. The findings show that there was a sustained drop out of youth from farming occupations from the year 2008/09 to 2014/15. Furthermore, education level was found to influence the dropping out of youth from farming to non-farming occupations while land ownership motivates youth to join farming occupations. There was no statistically significant difference between the subjective welfare of youth engaging in farming and those in non-farming occupations. The study recommends the following: introducing agriculture as a subject in primary schools, stabilizing farm products’ markets, changing the perception of youth towards farming, and encouraging land tenure system that allows youth’s full ownership of farming land.
