Youth unemployment and political instability: evidence from IGAD member countries

Abstract

Evidence show that IGAD member countries are the most political unstable countries in the world. On the other hand, literatures on the subject reveal that youth unemployment contributes the most towards the political instability across the world. Nonetheless, investigation on the effect of youth unemployment on political instability particularly in IGAD member countries is very scanty. Thus, the objective of the current study is to investigate the effect of youth unemployment on political instability in IGAD member countries. For this purpose, the necessary secondary data is collected from ICRG, WDI and ILO on five selected IGAD member countries. To find out the effect of youth unemployment on political instability; fixed effect model, instrumental variable fixed effect model and one step system GMM estimation on dynamic panel data have been employed. The analysis result revealed that there is a significant effect of youth unemployment on political instability in IGAD member countries. This region specifically needs a sound youth employment policy not only for the sake of youths but also for the relief of government reducing the burden of controlling continuous internal instabilities. Moreover, in region-wise the IGAD countries better to have common youth employment creation policies so that they can manage the internal conflicts arises here and then.

Keywords:

• Youth Unemployment
• Political instability
• IGAD countries

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

Youth unemployment is a big macroeconomic problem in the world. In addition, political instability has been a cause of concern for many countries around the world and a headache for government irrespective of the state of development or their political regime. A surging youth population combined with unemployment and other factors can lead to violence. Therefore, focusing on the effect of youth unemployment on political instability may have many benefits for the region.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. IGAD-The Intergovernmental Authority on Development is an eight-country trade bloc in Africa. It includes Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda.

2. For more details, see PRS Group (2012) International Country Risk Guide Annual. http://www.prsgroup.com/ICRG_Methodology.aspx

3. GMM- the Arellano–Bond estimator is a generalized method of moments estimator used to estimate dynamic models of panel data.

4. Let recall that the higher is the value, the highest is the risk of political instability.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Yemareshet Hailu Demeke

Yemareshet Hailu Demeke, the author of this article, is M.Sc in economics holder from Addis Ababa University with specialization of Economic policy analysis. Currently, I am working for Debre Berhan University as lecturer. I am interested to conduct a study on macroeconomic variables.