The Root Causes of Migration: Why Africans Leave their Homes

Abstract

In recent years, irregular migration from sub-Saharan Africa has been under the spotlight.
Western media and politicians often use doomsday scenarios to describe the supposedly
millions of desperate people knocking at the gates of the European Eldorado
to escape poverty and warfare at home. Such a stereotypical conception of sub-Saharan
African migration is not only overlooking its root causes, but it is also far from its real
dynamics. Thus, inspired by the extensive literature on international migration and
based on data availability, 27 potential root causes of migration were selected to cover
30 sub-Saharan countries for the period between 2002 and 2016. The sensitivity and
robustness of each potential determinant of both net migration and refugee population
is tested using the two approaches of extreme bounds analysis proposed by Leamer
and Leonard, and Sala-I-Martin. The results reveal that gross domestic product per
capita, domestic credit, trade, foreign direct investment inflows, external debt, youth
unemployment, natural resources rents, international tourism, military expenditure,
health expenditure, undernourishment, food production, life expectancy, HIV prevalence,
population growth, corruption, voice and accountability, rule of law, government
effectiveness, regulatory quality, and common law are the root causes of migration in
sub-Saharan Africa.