Human Development and Net Migration: the Ghanaian Experience

This study examines human development as a key economic driver of net migration in Ghana. The study uses annual time series data spanning the period of 1980–2020. An instrumental variable econometric approach is used for the analysis based on its strength in addressing identification challenges such as serial correlation and endogeneity issues commonly associated with time series data. Other econometric techniques are also used for robustness purposes. The study shows evidence of a negative and statistically significant relationship between human development and net migration in Ghana. This finding implies that improving human development negatively drives net migration in favour of emigration. The study recommends that efforts towards improving education, health and income should be strengthened to reduce emigration especially skilled and illegal migrants. This study concludes that human development is a key socio-economic driver of net migration in Ghana.