Education and Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa Some Evidence from Senegal.docVIP

Theoretical and Applied Economics Volume XVIII (2011), No. 5(558), pp. 59-76 Education and Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Evidence from Senegal* Barassou DIAWARA Graduate School of Economics, Kyushu University, Japan bassojawara@yahoo.co.jp Mazhar MUGHAL Université de Pau et des Pays de lAdour, France mayher.yasinmughal@univ-pau.fr Abstract. This paper studies the education-employment nexus in the context of Senegal. Using the 2005 Senegal Household Survey, we find that households’ heads with higher education (lower secondary level and above) are less likely to be self-employed but more likely to be working in the public sector. Disaggregation by gender and location (rural vs. urban) does not affect the results. Besides, female headed households with secondary education and above are more likely to be employed in the private sector. The results suggest the importance of steps for extensive promotion of education (especially for an upward revision of the level of compulsory education) in resolving the persistent unemployment problem and improving the job availability in the private sector. Keywords: education; employment; Sub-Saharan Africa; Senegal. JEL Codes: I1, I21. REL Code: 14K. * We are indebted to the Agence Nationale de la Statistique et de la Démographie (ANSD) of the Republic of Senegal for providing the dataset and the Japanese of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) for supporting this research.  60 Barassou Diawara, Mazhar Mughal 1. Introduction Senegal has witnessed a fairly high level of economic growth over the last decade, which has led to a substantial reduction in poverty (Azam et al., 2007). However, in order to bring poor households out of poverty, growth should accompany better work opportunities, as most individuals in the developing countries derive their income fro