Economic Globalisation and Youth Unemployment – Evidence from African countries

ABSTRACT

The present study seeks to examine the impact of economic globalisation on youth unemployment for 50 African countries between the period 1994 and 2013. In addition to the economic globalisation measurements, the present study controlled the variables that represent the fluctuations in economic activates; demographic changes, a country’s economic size; the quality of governmental institutions; and labour market regulation. The results of the Arellano-Bond (A-B) GMM technique showed that greater openness to global markets would reflect in a lower youth unemployment rate. Furthermore, the results revealed that rigidity in labour market regulations seemed to reduce the youth unemployment rate. In addition, urbanisation seemed to raise the youth unemployment rate. The findings supported contemporary calls to participate in international trade to facilitate the job creation process.

KEYWORDS:

• Unemployment
• international trade
• labour market regulation
• youth

JEL CODES:

• J6
• F2
• J5

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Atif Awad http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2878-7939

Notes

1 For detailed information concerning the theoretical models on trade liberalisation and unemployment, see Dutt et al. (2009) and Hasan et al. (2012).

2 For an overview of the theoretical background that links international trade with labour market regulation, see Potrafke (2013).