Driven to leave: analysing the factors behind emigration in Africa

In recent years, emigration from Africa has increased significantly, especially towards the European Union, where it has received increasing media and political attention. This paper contributes to the debate by exploring the drivers of this phenomenon. Using a decomposition methodology, we first isolate the change in the stock of emigrants that can be ascribed to shocks in the countries of origin, that is, how much their domestic conditions incentivize emigration, regardless of destination. We also isolate the role of the EU in attracting African migrants. We find that for African countries, domestic shocks have increasingly contributed to outflows from the continent over time. In contrast, the attraction exerted by the EU is positive, but relatively small. We then explore the role of several types of domestic shock in driving the origin component. An econometric analysis over a large set of countries around the world suggests that a growing labour force, higher per capita GDP, and worsening labour market conditions increase the incentive to emigrate in most countries, including those in Africa. Conversely, while higher exposure to natural disasters is generally associated with a lower propensity to emigrate, this is not true for Africa, where the correlation turns slightly positive.