Environmentally sustainable socio-economic welfare and agricultural employment: evidence from ECOWAS

Abstract

Environmental sustainability considerations in socio-economic welfare has been argued in recent welfare literature. With an emphasis on the role of agricultural employment, this present study explores environmentally sustainable socio-economic welfare in ECOWAS, which features countries abundant in agriculture resources, although with low levels of socio-economic welfare and low carbon emissions. The study utilises a balanced panel data set of observations in respect of all fifteen ECOWAS countries over the period of 2010 to 2019. The Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) was used to measure environmentally sustainable socio-economic welfare. On the other hand, agricultural employment was measured using the percentage of the employed population earning their livelihoods from agricultural employment. Panel data fixed effects estimation was used to estimate the model for the study, and the findings were that agricultural employment had a significant adverse influence on environmentally sustainable socio-economic welfare as measured by HSDI, while a further comparison of the findings with that of welfare measured using HDI indicated that agricultural employment also adversely affected HDI. The study recommends that socio-economic welfare be assessed from the view point of environmental sustainability, and the governments of ECOWAS member countries provide strong governance including strong laws and policies to ensure that socio-economic welfare that is environmentally sustainable is realised as abundant agricultural resources as well as agricultural employment are well managed.