Demand-linked inclusion in secondary cities: fostering green job pathways for youth

Purpose To explain how secondary cities can create equitable youth pathways into green-collar work and to advance a practical framework, Demand-Linked Inclusion (DLI), that links skills provision to engineered local demand.Materials and methods Comparative multi-case study of Durban (South Africa), Salvador (Brazil), and Surakarta (Indonesia). Evidence derives from systematic analysis of municipal policies, programs, third-party reports, and local contextual sources (2018–2025), recorded in a structured document log to support source triangulation. Constructs were coded around opportunities/barriers, training-to-work pathways, and equity/just transition features. Cross-case synthesis identified recurring mechanisms.Results Youth opportunities concentrate in rooftop solar, nature-based restoration, and circular-economy niches. The conversion from training-to-first-earnings is strongest where cities shape demand, utilize procurement as a workforce policy, and stabilize thin labor markets. Inclusion rises when programs neutralize frictions and scaffold credentials. Persistent barriers include accreditation and starter-tool costs, dispersed worksites that raise time/transport burdens, and price volatility in entry-level niches.Conclusions Secondary cities can treat climate projects and circular markets as engines of equitable youth employment by synchronizing demand instruments with participation supports. DLI names this configuration and contributes an institutional mechanism to transitions, skills-ecosystem, and capability-approach literatures. Policy implications include packaging restoration/retrofit tenders into local lots, pre-booking employer touchpoints within training, budgeting modest transport and childcare supports, and establishing safety protocols. This also involves recognizing informal competencies for progression, making design choices that shorten time-to-first contract, widen participation, and make early green jobs viable.