Migration and Youth Unemployment in Africa: Implications for the African Continental Free Trade Area

This study explores the effect of intra-African migration on total unemployment and youth unemployment. It further distils the effect of intra-African migration on male and female youth unemployment and later employs a two-level estimation approach to determine gravity models of migration using Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood techniques and a 2-stage least squares approach, which is efficient in dealing with endogeneity bias. The results show that income per capita and population size of both origin and destination countries influence intra-African migration. Additionally, regional trade agreements are the main drivers of bilateral migration among African countries, suggesting that an Africa-wide trade agreement such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will stimulate migration. The results show a negative and statistically significant relationship between migration and youth as well as with overall unemployment in Africa. However, total unemployment tends to reduce faster than youth unemployment, suggesting that adults and experienced labour will benefit more from the employment opportunities created by the AfCFTA than the youth. In addition, the study finds that intra-African migration tends to reduce female youth unemployment than male youth unemployment.