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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic relationship between unemployment and higher education participation. By using panel data covering 40 sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2020, we opt to use a well-developed dynamic panel generalized method of moments estimator. The findings show that the youth unemployment rate has an inverse relationship with higher education enrollment in SSA and more specifically in countries with a low level of human development, independently of gender considerations. However, youth unemployment has a positive but not significant effect on enrollment in the medium-/high-level countries. They also show that youth unemployment positively relates to students’ dropping out. These results imply that improvement is possible in the higher education sector if policymakers would consistently target lower unemployment rates.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to those who took the time to read and give their suggestions to improve the draft of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
2 This model is based on assumptions that individuals consider only the amount of monetary benefits and costs associated to the investment in schooling, and are perfectly able to calculate those benefits and costs.
3 List of selected countries: Angola, Benin, Burundi, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Togo, Zimbabwe.