Dynamique de l'emploi au Sénégal : un suivi de cohortes sur la période 1992-2011

Senegalese labor market is characterized by a relative weakness of employment rate. It?s widely accepted that more education leads to better situation regarding employment. But in Senegal, despite the increasing number of new graduates, the business cycle doesn?t allow them to find a job. In this paper, we followed 32 cohorts by constructing a pseudo panel over the period 1992-2011 to measure the influence of some individuals and households characteristics on the employment rate. The analysis is conducted by pooling together all the business sectors first, before dividing the sample into workers in public sector, private sector and self employed persons. Four models have been estimated by using Least Squares Dummy Variables (LSDV). The results show that there are age effects, cohort effects and households? size effects. However, these variables have different impacts according to the sector considered. The youngest cohorts have relatively high employment rates especially in the private sector ; which contradicts a largely shared feeling that unemployment is a problem only for youth in Senegal. In general, education has a positive and significant effect in the public sector whatever the level, while a secondary education has a positive effect in public and negative in the private sector. In this private sector the tertiary education has a positive and significant effect. Being female reduces the chance of working, especially in the private sector. As regards the residence zone, living in the capital Dakar or rural areas (rather than in other cities) increases the probability of being self-employed while living in Dakar reduces the probability of being employed in the public sector and has any significant effect for the private sector.