Employment and Labour Mobility: Diasporas Slavery or Economic Empowerment

  • Abel Inabo Obaka National Open University of Nigeria
  • Ganiyat Adejoke Adesina-Uthman Associate Professor, National Open University of Nigeria
Keywords: unemployment, labour mobility, diaspora, economic empowerment.

Abstract

Most African countries face unemployment and poverty problems which may cause their citizens to migrate to seek employment. Questions are being asked whether such ventures are beneficial or an anticlimax for the seeker. The study interrogates the effects of unemployment on labour mobility on the one hand and labour mobility on economic development on the other. Effects of Remittances by Africans in the Diaspora from seven selected African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, South Africa, and Morocco were also examined. The Hausman test is used to choose the best model, and the random model was found to be suitable for examining the causal relationships between the six variables in the panel data. Because their remittances have a significantly positive association with per capita income in these nations, the data demonstrate that labor mobility is not economic enslavement but rather economic empowerment. Nevertheless, it was discovered that the per capita income was negatively impacted by labor mobility. This is a confirmation that brain drain from these countries affects per capita income. Population growth was found to have a negative relationship with labour mobility. The study recommends the reversal of brain drain through efforts that will ensure political stability and also recommends that brain gain through remittances by Africans in the Diaspora should be effectively and efficiently utilized for economic growth. It also recommends the need for an effective policy on Diaspora issues to assist in curbing excessive immigration of African people from Africa. These findings are similar to that of Olayungbo and Adediran (2017) and Gnimassoun and Anyanwu (2019). The major contribution of this study to the existing literature is that labor mobility is not significantly determined by unemployment rather it is majorly due to political instability in the selected countries.

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Author Biography

Ganiyat Adejoke Adesina-Uthman, Associate Professor, National Open University of Nigeria

Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Plot 91, Cadastral Zone, University Village, Nnamdi Azikiwe Expressway, Jabi, Abuja. Phone Number: +2348099471198.

Published
2024-01-15
How to Cite
Obaka, A., & Adesina-Uthman, G. (2024). Employment and Labour Mobility: Diasporas Slavery or Economic Empowerment. Empirical Economic Review, 6(2), 2-26. https://doi.org/10.29145/eer.62.01
Section
Articles