Immigration and Employment: Substitute Versus Complementary Labor in Selected African Countries

July 31, 2020

Preview Citation

Format: Chicago

Arina Viseth. Immigration and Employment: Substitute Versus Complementary Labor in Selected African Countries, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2020) accessed December 22, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

This paper 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. We find that immigration affects (i) employment (ii) employment allocation between informal and formal sectors, and (iii) the type of employment within each sector. The direction of the 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.

Subject: 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

Publication Details

Pages:

30
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2020/149
Stock No:

WPIEA2020149
ISBN:

9781513551937
ISSN:

1018-5941

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