Immigration and Employment: Substitute Versus Complementary Labor in Selected African Countries
IMF Working Papers, July 31, 2020
Source details
- Canonical URL
- Immigration and Employment: Substitute Versus Complementary Labor in Selected African Countries
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: Arina Viseth
- Published: July 31, 2020
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513551937.001
Summary of scope and methodology
- Uses census and household survey data on Cameroon, Ghana, and South Africa to examine immigration’s impact in the context of a segmented labor market in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Focuses on three dimensions of labor-market impact: (i) employment, (ii) employment allocation between informal and formal sectors, and (iii) the type of employment within each sector.
Key findings
- Immigration affects:
- Employment.
- Employment allocation between informal and formal sectors.
- The type of employment within each sector.
- The direction of immigration’s impact depends on the degree of complementarity between immigrants’ and native workers’ skills.
- Immigration is found to be productivity-enhancing in the short to near term in countries where the degree of complementarity between immigrants and native workers’ skill sets is the highest.
Subjects and keywords
- Subjects: Employment, Informal employment, Labor, Labor markets, Migration, Population and demographics, Self-employment.
- Keywords: Africa, Cameroon, Complementary Versus Substitute Skills, Employment, employment rate, Formal and Informal Sector, Ghana, Immigration, immigration share, immigration's impact, impact immigration, Informal employment, Labor markets, Migration, native worker, Occupational Choice, origin country, Self-employment, South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, supply shock, wage employment, WP.
Content in this bundle
- Working Paper