Population Growth and Unemployment in Nigeria

Babatunde Afolabi ,O O Awopetu

doi:10.7176/jesd/11-2-10

Abstract

The Nigerian economy has been seriously bedeviled by a myriad of economic malaise that has explained the slow pace of its growth rate and a severe decline in development. It is in view of the above that the study critically examined the relationship between population growth and unemployment in Nigeria. The paper employed data from secondary sources which covered the period of 1991-2016, sourced from the World Bank data base. The method of analysis was the Johansen Cointegration and Error correction model. ADF unit root test was used to establish the order of integration of the variables. Granger causality test was used to examine the direction of causality among the variables. A positive relationship was found to exist between population growth and unemployment. The result of the regression analysis shows that population plays a major role in the increased level of unemployment in Nigeria. The findings showed that population growth has a strong impact on unemployment in Nigeria. This means that a rise in population growth leads to a rise in unemployment. The study concluded that to combat the acute unemployment in the country, the Government should ensure there is job creation especially in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Private sectors employers should be given subsidies so as to encourage them to employ more people. Keywords: Population growth, Unemployment, Corruption, Rural urban migration. JEL Classification: E24, J62, J11 DOI : 10.7176/JESD/11-2-10 Publication date: January 31 st 2020

Highlights

1.0 Introduction The Nigerian Economy is typified by high level of population growth, as it is the most populous nation in Africa and the 8th in the world with an estimated figure of about 170 million people based on the facts released by the National Population Commission in the year 2012
4.0 Discussion of Results 4.1 Testing for presence of Unit Roots in the Variables Table 4.1 shows the results of unit root in the variables when they were tested at level and after they were differenced once
When the tests were conducted on the variables before they were differenced, the probability of T-statistics is 0.2 for total population that of total unemployment is 0.3, 0.1 for FDI inflow, 0.9 for domestic market, while it is 0.6 for exchange rate

Summary

Introduction

Economy is typified by high level of population growth, as it is the most populous nation in Africa and the 8th in the world with an estimated figure of about 170 million people based on the facts released by the National Population Commission in the year 2012. Nigeria has been experiencing population growth for the past 50 years as a result of high natality rates which increases the population geometrically over time. Unemployment occurs as a result of the insufficiency of jobs to commensurate with the rapid population growth, even those who are already employed are afraid of being rendered unemployed due to the insecurity of the job, economic recession and retrenchment of workers. The public violence, insurgency, high crime rate e.t.c experienced by the Nigerian Economy are assumed to be products of unemployment in a growing population. Nigeria’s big concern is how to produce sufficient employment opportunity so as to absorb the Country’s growing pool of labour

Objectives

Results

Conclusion