Unraveling the intricate relationship between unemployment, population, and poverty in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Does quality of life matter?

Abstract

The study aims to address poverty eradication efforts globally and promote sustainable development goals (viz., SDGs 1 and 8), specifically focusing on improving quality of life, population optimization, job creation, and economic growth. The research investigates the increasing poverty rates in Sub‐Saharan Africa and analyses the role of population, unemployment, and quality of life in 18 selected countries from 2002 to 2019. The study employs the novel panel quantile autoregressive distributed lag method (PQARDL) developed by Chishti and Retish (2023) to address complex econometric challenges. The findings indicate that unemployment significantly contributes to short‐ and long‐term poverty across all market situations (bearish, normal, and bullish). Conversely, population growth significantly discourages poverty across African economies in the short and long term. These effects are observed in the case of remittances and GDP. Interestingly, the impact of infant mortality and life expectancy on poverty remains insignificant in the short term. Still, life expectancy discourages poverty in the long term, while infant mortality increases poverty in bearish, normal, and bullish market situations. As a result, unemployment and population growth are important factors determining poverty in Sub‐Saharan Africa. The study discusses policy directions based on these findings to address poverty effectively.