Population growth and human resource utilization nexus in Nigeria

Abstract

Purpose Population growth has remained a key issue facing developing economies in the world. While developed countries are experiencing diminished or negative population growth, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria are having population growth above the economic growth rate. With the deadline for the sustainable development goals approaching, attention is increasingly being focused on population growth and human capital development. Extant literature focused on population growth, human resource utilization and economic growth but this study aims to examine the effect of population growth on human resource utilization. Design/methodology/approach Using secondary data for the period 1990-2018, the study conducted unit root test and co-integration analyses to determine the stationarity and correlation in the long-run in the variables. The study used the error correction model to ascertain the speed at which shocks can be corrected in the long-run. Granger causality test was also carried out to ascertain the direction of causality among the variables. Findings The empirical results revealed that population growth has a negative and significant effect on human resource utilization. The study also revealed that unidirectional causality runs from employment rate to population growth rate and a unidirectional causality runs from employment growth rate to expected years of schooling. The Nigerian Government needs to not only control population growth but also focus on the quality of education. Originality/value The paper provides insights into the relationship between population growth and human capital utilization in Nigeria focusing on the 1986-2018 period.

The African Continental Free Trade Area and Its Employment-Generation Potentials in Nigeria’s Industrial Sector

“…This adversely affects investment; consequently, employment is adversely effected. This finding corroborates evidence from Maijama'a et al (2019), Afolabi and Awopetu (2020), Adeosun and Popogbe (2020) which found that increase in population worsens the unemployment problem in the country.…”

Human capital flight and output growth nexus: evidence from Nigeria

“…Thus, an increase in population does not necessarily translate to better economic growth. This corroborates the findings by Adeosun and Popogbe (2020). The error correction term is À1.7, which is statistically significant at 1%, suggests a 172% annual adjustment toward long-run equilibrium.…”

“…On the other hand, Vecchione (2018) focused on the Italian economy and found that high skilled migration drastically reduced human capital accumulation in Italy The findings showed that migration negatively impacted human capital development. These findings imply that the problem of human development may be a cause and effect of human capital flight as revealed by Tabassum et al (2017), Adeosun and Popogbe (2020); and Popogbe and Adeosun (2020). The study by Docquier and Rapoport (2012) further revealed that uncontrolled high-skilled migration led to a shortage of health workers in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2010, which, in turn, led to worsened health status.…”

“…However, the study by Popogbe and Adeosun (2020) revealed that increased population growth rate and poor life expectancy increases the likelihood of migrating out of Nigeria. Indeed, Adeosun and Popogbe (2020) affirmed that the increasing population has always been to the disadvantage of the Nigerian economy. This is because although the population has spiraled over the years, human development utilization is very poor.…”

GDP and population growth: Evidence of fractional cointegration with historical data from 1820 onwards

“…There are many papers dealing with economic growth in time series (Narayan et al, 2007;Payne, 2010;Wong, 2013;Sa Cardoso and Ravishankar, 2015), while others focus on population (Azam et al, 2020;Adeosun and Popogbe, 2020), and others on the relationship between them (Yezdani, 2013;Rehman, 2019). In general, there is agreement on the existence of a relationship between population and GDP per capita and its importance to understand income per capita distributions.…”