Labour market expectations and job search of young workers in West Africa

Posted on 24 Nov 2023
Updated on 24 Nov 2023
2-minute read

Imagine if your chances of unemployment increased with your level of education. Those years of studying and the financial investment resulting in months to years of employment uncertainty and instability. In low-income countries, this is the reality faced by most high-school and university graduates – but what is the root cause and impact of this underemployment?

The challenge

While educational attainment has risen Sub-Saharan Africa over recent decades, these countries exhibit a puzzling pattern: unemployment rates increase with education. With a scarcity of salaried employment opportunities, and aspirations for high-valued jobs in the formal sector, most graduates spend years searching for stable employment - a phenomenon at odds with the $80 million Australia annually invests in the region for development assistance.

Cote d’Ivoire - uncovering graduates' labour market expectations and their job search behaviours.

Solution

Through an Australian Research Council DECRA fellowship the research team aim to ascertain why high school and university graduates face high unemployment rates in Cote d’Ivoire. The project will create the region’s first comprehensive dataset on graduate jobseekers by surveying 1,400 – 2,000 graduates in Côte d’Ivoire to understand labour market expectations across different sectors, their job search behaviour and their migration intentions.

Leveraging the survey results, the researcher will also design two novel theoretical frameworks to evaluate the root causes of unemployment. The novel theoretical frameworks will establish: (i) a job search and migration model explaining the link between jobseekers' beliefs, their job search choices and their emigration intentions, and (ii) a search and matching model for understanding the consequences of these choices at the scale of the whole labour market.

Outcome and impact

This investigation into the root causes of graduate unemployment and its consequences for international migration will directly shape policy advice to assist governments in the region and international institutions seeking to address graduate unemployment.

Focusing on Côte d’Ivoire, the project will contribute to ensuring that Australia’s development assistance spending is sustainable, economically viable and relevant - addressing a gap in knowledge as to why educational qualifications do not necessarily translate into jobs.