BRAIN DRAIN AND LABOUR OUTPUT IN NIGERIA: AN ECONOMETRIC APPROACH

Abstract

Western societies’ contact with Africa was grossly associated with massive slave trade. Post the contact, the paradigm shifted from slave trade to brain drain. This movement of highly skilled manpower from the country to developed societies reduces both the quality and quantity of labour force in the brain drained-country. Hence, this study investigates the impact of brain drain on labour productivity in Nigeria from 1999 to 2017 using quarterly data gotten from World Development Indicators (2018) and National Bureau of statistics (2017).Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model is adopted. The bounds test reveals the presence of cointegration amongst the variables. The Philips Peron unit root test reveals that the variables are stationary both at level form and after first difference, thus fit for long run estimation.Fromthe results: brain drain has a significant impact on labour output such that the higher the brain drain, the lower the labour productivity in real terms; over the years of study, work hours per capita decreased, but total hours worked increased due to increase in population. The study also identifies other causes of poor labour output as: unemployment, poor salaries, poor infrastructures (eg. Road, power, water, etc.), high fuel prices amongst others. Therefore, the study recommends that: government should review policies relating to remuneration/salary and general working conditions of workers, especially medical personnel and other professionals; government should improve infrastructural facilities necessary for improving labour productivity and regulate her population growth rate to a manageable size.