The Economist October 30th 2021 29
BriefingMigration within Africa“M
an, nigeria has been a ride,”
laughs Mawuli Gavor, a 32yearold
star in Nollywood, Nigeria’s booming film
business. Mr Gavor does not fit the stereo
type of an African migrant, struggling to
cross the Mediterranean in a leaky boat.
Born and raised in Ghana, he was working
as an accountant when an admirer sug
gested he try for a modelling job. Soon, he
was in Nigeria, making a fortune in films.
Many Africans are taking similar jour
neys, though most are less glamorous. In a
market in Dakar, the capital of Senegal,
Ibrahim Bary, a 25yearold from Guinea,
sells cows’ livers hanging from hooks.
Work is easier to find in Senegal than back
home. He makes around $4.50 a day and
plans to send four days’ pay home to his
family in Guinea this month. He previous
ly worked as a taxi driver in Ivory Coast. “I
will stay a while, earn some money, and
then go home,” he says.
In the decade to 2020 the number of
subSaharans living abroad jumped from
about 20m to 28m. This causes connip
tions in Europe, where many voters fear aflood of immigrants. Europe is indeed at
tractive to Africans. Average incomes are 11
times higher and, though African migrants
often do menial jobs, they earn on average
three times what they did back home.
But it has become very hard for Africans
to move to Europe unless they have rare
skills, such as treating sick people or scor
ing goals (though ageing Europe will soon
be short of ordinary workers, too). New
permits for subSaharan Africans to work
there plummeted from 33,000 in 2008 to
about half that number in 2018. European
governments have lavished cash on border
controls and done deals with north African
countries to stop migrant boats from set
ting sail. They sometimes do this brutally.
Arrivals have plummeted (see chart 1 on
next page). A migrant who heads for Eu
rope without permission must pay a fat
sum to smugglers and faces a high risk of
failure or even death.
SubSaharans with getupandgo have
long been migrating closer to home. Only
18% of those living abroad are in Europe.
About 70% are in other African countries(see map on next page). Between 2010 and
2020 the unsays the number of subSaha
ran migrants within Africa rose by more
than 40% to 19m (a figure many experts call
an underestimate). The Immigration Poli
cy Lab at Stanford University analysed a
survey by the International Organisation
for Migration (iom) of 88,000 people on
popular migration routes in west Africa. It
found 90% planned to stay in Africa.
Africans are likely to become more mo
bile. Today, the continent has fewer mi
grants as a share of population (2%) than
the world average (3.5%). Moving costs
money: a migrant needs enough to cover at
least a bus fare and a few nights’ accommo
dation while looking for a job. Many Afri
cans cannot yet afford that, but one day
they will be able to. Global research sug
gests that as poor countries grow richer,
more of their people tend to emigrate, until
average incomes reach around $10,000 a
year. Income per head in subSaharan Afri
ca is currently $3,800, so there is a lot of
room for growth.
The population is increasing, too, at
2.7% per year, more than double the speed
in South Asia. More people need not mean
a higher rate of migration, but it obviously
increases the absolute number of potential
migrants. Estimates vary a lot, but there
could be twice as many Africans by 2050,
and many will be young men, the group
most likely to move.
Climate change has not yet spurred
large population movements, but it may doC APE TOWN, DAKAR, LAGOS AND NAIROBI
Many more Africans are migrating within their own continent than to EuropeAfrican odyssey