The Role of Land Inheritance in Youth Migration and Employment Choices: Evidence from Rural Nigeria

This study contributes to the literature on the drivers of migration and employment choices, with a particular focus on youth in Nigeria. It evaluates the effect of young Nigerians’ expected land inheritance on the likelihood of their migration and on their employment and livelihood choices. We conducted a series of differential analyses on data from two Nigeria Living Standards Measurement Study panel surveys to understand the likelihood of migration and employment decisions being influenced by land inheritance, while also considering social and economic mediating factors such as the level of land market development and levels of urbanization. Overall, our findings seem to suggest that land inheritance, proxied by the size of expected land inheritance, is significantly and negatively associated with long-distance migration and with migration to urban areas, while the impact is negligible when a broader definition of migration is adopted and when migration is deemed as temporary. We find heterogeneous responses to land inheritance among various groups of youth, as well as varying responses to different levels of land market development and levels of urbanization. The results indicate that older youth and those who are less educated are more likely to respond to different levels of land market development and urbanization. We also show that the larger the size of expected land inheritance, the lower the likelihood that a young person will be involved in nonagricultural activities and the higher his or her chance of staying in agriculture. These results suggest that improving the inheritance of land by youth will guarantee more success in deterring unrewarding migration and employment choices by those less educated.