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The Role of Land Inheritance in Youth Migration and Employment Choices: Evidence from Rural Nigeria

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Abstract

This study contributes to the literature on the drivers of migration and employment choices, with a particular focus on youth in Nigeria. It evaluates the effect of young Nigerians’ expected land inheritance on the likelihood of their migration and on their employment and livelihood choices. We conducted a series of differential analyses on data from two Nigeria Living Standards Measurement Study panel surveys to understand the likelihood of migration and employment decisions being influenced by land inheritance, while also considering social and economic mediating factors such as the level of land market development and levels of urbanization. Overall, our findings seem to suggest that land inheritance, proxied by the size of expected land inheritance, is significantly and negatively associated with long-distance migration and with migration to urban areas, while the impact is negligible when a broader definition of migration is adopted and when migration is deemed as temporary. We find heterogeneous responses to land inheritance among various groups of youth, as well as varying responses to different levels of land market development and levels of urbanization. The results indicate that older youth and those who are less educated are more likely to respond to different levels of land market development and urbanization. We also show that the larger the size of expected land inheritance, the lower the likelihood that a young person will be involved in nonagricultural activities and the higher his or her chance of staying in agriculture. These results suggest that improving the inheritance of land by youth will guarantee more success in deterring unrewarding migration and employment choices by those less educated.

Résumé

Cette étude contribue à la littérature sur les moteurs de la migration et de l'emploi, avec un accent particulier sur les jeunes au Nigéria. Elle évalue l'effet de l'héritage foncier attendu des jeunes Nigérians sur la probabilité de leur migration et sur leurs choix d'emploi et de moyens de subsistance. Nous avons mené une série d'analyses différentielles sur les données de deux enquêtes par panel sur la mesure des niveaux de vie au Nigéria pour comprendre la probabilité que les décisions de migration et d'emploi soient influencées par l'héritage foncier, tout en tenant compte des facteurs de médiation sociaux et économiques tels que le niveau de développement du marché foncier et le niveau d'urbanisation. Dans l'ensemble, nos résultats semblent suggérer que l'héritage foncier, représenté par la taille de l'héritage foncier attendu, est significativement et négativement associé à la migration longue distance et à la migration vers les zones urbaines, alors que l'impact est négligeable lorsqu'une définition plus large de la migration est adoptée et lorsque la migration est considérée comme temporaire. Nous trouvons des réponses hétérogènes à l'héritage foncier parmi divers groupes de jeunes, ainsi que des réponses variables à différents niveaux de développement du marché foncier et d'urbanisation. Les résultats indiquent que les jeunes plus âgés et ceux qui sont moins instruits sont plus susceptibles de réagir à différents niveaux de développement du marché foncier et d'urbanisation. Nous montrons également que plus la taille de l'héritage foncier attendu est importante, plus la probabilité qu'un jeune soit impliqué dans des activités non agricoles est faible et plus sa probabilité de rester dans l'agriculture est élevée. Ces résultats suggèrent que l'amélioration de l'héritage des terres par les jeunes garantira plus de succès dans la dissuasion des choix de migration et d'emploi peu gratifiants par les jeunes moins instruits.

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Notes

  1. The focus of this study is on migration within the country. A migrant was thus defined as a household member who had been absent in another part of the country for at least 1 of the previous 12 months.

  2. Following the youth charter of the African Union, we define youth as individuals between 15 and 35 years of age.

  3. For generations, the role of access to land and other rural resources has been central to much of the work on migration in southern Africa. During the colonial period in that part of the continent, policies reducing access to land were deliberately imposed to push rural men into migrating and had much “success.” The relevant literature is reviewed by Deborah Potts in her book, Circular Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa (Potts 2010); the links between land access and individual migrants' decisions in Zimbabwe are also covered in that book and in Potts and Mutambirwa (2007).

  4. By using nationally representative panel data from Tanzania, Ricker-Gilbert and Chamberlin (2018) estimate the extent to which land rental markets provide a pathway for youth to enter into agriculture and the degree to which transaction costs may impede youth access to renting-in land. Their results show that rental markets are important mechanisms through which young farmers access land, but that younger farmers face higher transaction costs when renting land than do older farmers.

  5. The land tenure module integrated into the second wave of the LSMS survey (2012/2013) includes comprehensive parcel-level data on the identity of individuals with land rights in the household (which includes the right to inherit agricultural parcels).

  6. The LGA is the smallest administrative unit in Nigeria.

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Acknowledgements

This work was also undertaken as part of the Nigeria Strategy Support Program, which has been managed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and has been financially made possible by support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Feed the Future Nigeria Agriculture Policy Activity; CGIAR Research Initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS); and Fragility, Conflict, and Migration (FCM). CGIAR launched NPS with national and international partners to build policy coherence, respond to crises, and integrate policy tools at national and subnational levels in six countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/. We would like also to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor of the journal for very helpful and constructive comments and suggestions of great benefit to the current version. The usual disclaimer applies.

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  1. Development Strategies and Governance Unit, International Food Policy Research Institute, 1201 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20005, USA

    Mulubrhan Amare, Hosaena Ghebru & Adebayo Ogunniyi

  2. Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    George Mavrotas

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Amare, M., Ghebru, H., Mavrotas, G. et al. The Role of Land Inheritance in Youth Migration and Employment Choices: Evidence from Rural Nigeria. Eur J Dev Res 36, 135–160 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-023-00596-8

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