- Jobs, Poverty Drive New Wave of African Migration Aspirations – Afrobarometer Finds
Africa’s migration challenge is becoming less a story of mobility and more a warning about economic confidence. A new Afrobarometer survey across 38 African countries suggests that persistent unemployment, weak job creation and worsening economic pressures are driving a growing number of citizens to consider leaving their countries, intensifying concerns that the continent could lose some of its youngest and most educated people at a time when their skills are most needed.
The findings, contained in Afrobarometer’s 2026 flagship report, Beyond Borders: Citizen Perspectives on a Shifting Global Order, show that 45% of Africans have considered emigrating, including 25% who say they have thought “a lot” about moving abroad.
Among countries with comparable historical data, the share considering migration has risen sharply from 18% between 2016 and 2018, pointing to a deepening sense of economic frustration across much of the continent.
For governments, the numbers present an uncomfortable contradiction.
African states have spent years promoting industrialisation, entrepreneurship, digital transformation and youth employment as the foundations of long-term growth. Yet a significant proportion of the population particularly younger and better-educated citizens appears increasingly unconvinced that those opportunities will materialise quickly enough at home.
West Africa stands out as one of the regions with the strongest migration ambitions.
About 34% of respondents in the region said they had seriously considered leaving their countries, reflecting the combined pressures of youth unemployment, limited formal-sector opportunities and broader cost-of-living concerns.
The Gambia recorded the highest share, with 53% of respondents saying they had seriously contemplated migration, followed by Liberia at 51%, Guinea-Bissau at 49% and Ghana at 44%.
It suggests that recent macroeconomic stabilisation has not yet translated into a sufficiently strong sense of economic opportunity for many citizens. Lower inflation or improving fiscal indicators may stabilise the economy at a national level, but migration decisions are ultimately shaped by whether individuals believe they can find jobs, build careers and improve living standards.
That distinction is important because the survey shows that the dominant motivation for migration is overwhelmingly economic.
Among respondents who have considered emigrating, 50% identified employment as their primary reason, while 29% cited poverty or broader economic hardship. Education accounted for only 4%, political considerations 3%, and travel opportunities another 3%.
The implication is clear: Africa’s migration problem is, at its core, a labour-market problem.
Political instability, insecurity and conflict remain major drivers in some countries, but across the continent the stronger pattern is one of people looking outward because domestic economies are not generating enough jobs with the incomes, security and career prospects they want.
The most important question, however, is not only how many people want to leave. The report suggests that migration aspirations are concentrated disproportionately among younger and more educated Africans, precisely the population segment most often described as central to the continent’s demographic and economic future.
Citizens aged between 18 and 35 years were almost three times more likely than those aged above 55 years to have seriously considered migration. About 32% of younger respondents expressed strong interest in leaving, compared with just 11% among older citizens.
In Ghana, the pattern is even more pronounced. The report indicates that 55% of young Ghanaians have seriously considered emigrating.
A country can expand access to education, improve macroeconomic indicators and invest in infrastructure, but if more than half of its young people still believe their best opportunities lie elsewhere, then the policy challenge goes beyond growth rates.
It becomes a question of whether economic progress is producing credible pathways for individual advancement.
Among respondents with higher levels of education, 31% reported serious intentions to leave, compared with 18% among those with the least education. That is a potentially costly development for African economies.
Governments invest significant public resources in education, skills development and professional training on the assumption that those investments will ultimately strengthen domestic productivity.
But if the most educated citizens increasingly leave, destination economies may capture a larger share of the returns from that human-capital investment.
The result is a familiar but increasingly urgent policy problem: brain drain.
Doctors, nurses, engineers, academics, technology professionals and other highly skilled workers can earn more and access better working conditions abroad, while their departure leaves gaps in domestic labour markets.
The migration data therefore raise questions not only about job creation but job quality.
The issue is no longer simply whether African economies can create employment. It is whether they can create employment attractive enough to retain educated citizens with global options. The survey also points to a shift in where prospective migrants want to go. The share preferring another African country as a destination has fallen from 36% between 2016 and 2018 to 26% today.
North America, by contrast, has become more attractive, with its share increasing from 21% to 28%, while Europe rose from 27% to 29%.
The shift suggests that prospective migrants are increasingly looking beyond regional movement towards destinations perceived to offer stronger labour markets, higher wages and more durable long-term opportunities.
The African Continental Free Trade Area is intended not only to expand trade but ultimately to deepen economic integration, investment and labour mobility across the continent.
Yet if citizens increasingly see opportunity outside Africa rather than within it, the project of continental integration faces a parallel challenge: building economies capable of competing for African talent.
Afrobarometer nevertheless cautions against assuming that migration aspirations automatically translate into actual departures.
Official migration data still show that most African migrants remain within Africa.
Geographical proximity, lower costs, family connections and regional mobility frameworks continue to make intra-African migration more practical than relocation to Europe or North America.
Many people may want to leave for distant destinations but lack the financial resources, visas, qualifications or networks required to do so.
Even so, the aspiration itself remains politically and economically important because it reflects how citizens judge their prospects at home.
The report also highlights a contradiction in attitudes towards immigrants. About 77% of Africans said they would welcome, or would not mind having, immigrants as neighbours.
Yet attitudes become considerably less open when migration is associated with jobs or pressure on national resources.
About 64% preferred admitting fewer or no foreign job seekers, while 70% wanted fewer or no refugees accepted into their countries.
The pattern suggests that social tolerance remains relatively strong, but economic insecurity shapes perceptions when immigration is seen through the lens of employment, public services and competition for scarce opportunities.
It is a pattern visible across many economies where public attitudes towards immigration become more restrictive during periods of labour-market pressure and weak income growth.
For African governments, however, the finding creates an additional irony. Millions of citizens want greater access to labour markets abroad while simultaneously expressing reservations about foreign workers entering their own countries.
Beyond the migration numbers themselves, the Afrobarometer findings provide a broader measure of confidence in Africa’s development trajectory.
When large numbers of citizens, particularly the young and educated, increasingly believe their future is elsewhere, the risk extends beyond population loss.
Countries may lose entrepreneurs, skilled workers, taxpayers and innovators. Public institutions may repeatedly train employees only to lose them to foreign labour markets. And perhaps most importantly, migration ambitions can become a barometer of whether citizens believe domestic systems are capable of rewarding effort and education.
The report arrives at a moment when African governments are pursuing ambitious economic strategies centred on industrialisation, regional trade and youth employment.
But those strategies will ultimately be judged not by the number of policy documents produced or investment conferences held, but by whether citizens can see tangible opportunities in their own economies.
Afrobarometer captures the challenge succinctly, concluding that “it is the youngest and most educated who are most likely to depart.”
That finding should concern governments because the very people most likely to leave are also those most frequently identified as essential to Africa’s economic transformation.
Diaspora communities contribute remittances, skills, investment and international networks to their countries of origin.
Workers who migrate can improve household welfare and sometimes return with capital and expertise.
But large-scale outward migration driven primarily by the absence of opportunity is different.
It can become a signal that domestic economies are failing to absorb their own talent. For Ghana and other countries recording high migration aspirations, the policy lesson is therefore broader than simply controlling borders or persuading citizens to remain.
That means stronger job creation, more competitive wages, credible career progression, better working conditions, stronger institutions and an economic environment where education translates into opportunity.
Without those conditions, Africa’s demographic advantage risks becoming a demographic export. The continent may continue educating ambitious young people only to see the most mobile among them build their futures elsewhere.
For governments, the warning from Afrobarometer is therefore difficult to ignore.
The competition for Africa’s future is no longer only about attracting foreign capital. It is also about convincing Africa’s own people particularly its youngest, most educated and most economically active citizens that the opportunities they are searching for abroad can still be built at home.
