The impact of skill acquistion on choice of occupation and destination for migrant youths in Malawi

ABSTRACT

The study examines the impact of skill acquisition on choice of destination and occupation for migrant youth in Malawi. This study uses primary data collected under the Youth, Employment and Migration for East and Southern Africa (YEMESA) project. Drawing from multinomial logit and Probit models, the study finds that having technical skills before migrating has a statistical significant effect on migrating to long-established administrative cities with stable markets compared to new and expanding commercial cities. Further, technical skills do not have a statistically significant effect on being an entrepreneur but they increase the conditional probability of being employed for wage. Therefore, evidence from this study does not support the premise that in a rural developing economy like Malawi, technical ability can propel migration decision to a more pro-entrepreneurship destination due to convex returns to skills. Rather, lack of start-up capital remain key and prohibitive in entrepreneurship. The study also shows that women are more likely to be in wage employment than in entrepreneurship indicating that entrepreneurship bottlenecks are more severe among women and thus suggesting a need of women’s financial inclusion. Finally, the study also ascertains the role of information and expectations in the decision to migrate.

KEYWORDS:

• Technical skills
• internal youth migration
• migration destination
• multinomial logit
• probit model
• Malawi

Acknowledgements

This paper was funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) through YEMESA project at University of Malawi- Chancellor College. We, therefore, acknowledge, with thanks, the IDRC for their financial support and the department of Economics in the University of Malawi for the technical support and mentorship throughout seminar presentations of the work in progress of the paper. Additionally, We acknowledge vital inputs and insights by various scholars during the 2019 African Economic Conference (AEC) in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt that has made this paper good for publication.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the writing and revisions of the manuscript and approved the final version of the manuscript prior to its submission. The corresponding author had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy, confidentiality, and other restrictions. Access to data can be gained through the department of Economics at Chancellor College under the YEMESA project.

Notes

1. See for example, de Haan (1999) and Narman (1995).

2. See (NSO, 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This research work was carried out with scientific support from the Economics Department at Chancellor College of the University of Malawi, and with funding from International Development Research Centre (IDRC) through the Youth Employment and Migration for East and Southern Africa (YEMESA) research grant 108368. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, preparation of the manuscript , or decision to publish.

Notes on contributors

Tony Mwenda Kamninga

Tony Mwenda Kamninga holds a Master of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Malawi, Chancellor College. He is currently a Global Health Corps Fellow placed with the African Institute for Development policy as a Research and Policy Associate. His Research Interest is in applied Microeconometric Analysis, Economics of Migration and Economics of Health.

Martin Phangaphanga

Martin Phangaphanga is a lecturer in economics at the University of Malawi. He completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Cape Town and undergraduate as well as masters degree studies  at the University of Malawi. His current research focuses on labour migration, economic mobility and income distribution in developing countries

Winford Henderson Masanjala

Winford Henderson Masanjala holds an MSc and PhD in Economics from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA, a Postgraduate Diploma in Population and Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands, and a BSoc.Sc Degree from the University of Malawi. Winford is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Malawi. His research and consulting experience spans macroeconomics, monetary, population and health economics, and economics of energy and infrastructural development