From Unemployment to Informality: Behavioral Drivers and Economic Outcomes of Entrepreneurial Entry in Nigeria.

Nigeria's graduate unemployment crisis, exceeding 42% among youth, has propelled educated labour into the informal sector, which now absorbs 92.7% of employment. While structural constraints are well-documented, the behavioral mechanisms and technology-mediated learning pathways of entrepreneurial entry remain under-theorised. This study develops an integrated behavioral-economic framework extending the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to examine how digital parasocial learning and informal training networks shape the transition from unemployment to informal entrepreneurship among urban Nigerian graduates. Drawing on cross-sectional survey data from 340 graduate entrepreneurs in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, we employ PLS-SEM, multi-group analysis, and multivariate regression. We find that parasocial learning is positively associated with entrepreneurial intention indirectly through entrepreneurial attitude and perceived behavioral control. Exploratory multi-group analysis suggests that under high necessity, the attitude, intention pathway may compress and strengthen, while subjective norms may lose predictive power; these findings require replication. Informal training and parasocial learning exhibit complementarity in predicting business performance and net profit. The study demonstrates that technology-mediated social learning represents an under-leveraged pathway for unlocking Nigeria's entrepreneurial potential, but warns that uncritical digital engagement may expose necessity-driven graduates to survivorship bias. Policy implications focus on low-cost digital literacy interventions and embedding behavioral insights into youth employment programmes without imposing formalisation burdens.

Informal entrepreneurship, parasocial learning, digital learning, necessity entrepreneurship, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Nigeria

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