The Impact of Health-Related Pandemics and the Economic Uncertainty in Sub-Saharan Africa’s Labour Market

Shelter Nene, University of Zululand
Kehinde Ilesanmi, Department of Economics, Faculty of Commerce, Administration and Law, University of Zululand, Richards Bay 3900

The study provides a comparative analysis of the impact of health-related pandemics and the level of economic uncertainty in the labour markets of low- and middle-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. An asymmetric panel ARDL and secondary data for the fourteen SSA countries are employed in the analysis, which covers the sample period from 1996 to 2022. To quantify the disruptions in the labour markets, the unemployment rate is utilised. Moreover, the Pandemics and World Economic Uncertainty indices are used to quantify the frequency of health-related pandemics and the levels of economic uncertainty resulting from policy responses, respectively. The findings demonstrate that pandemics positive shocks significantly affect unemployment rates in low-income SSA countries over both the short and long run. However, the effects of pandemics are only long-term significant for middle-income SSA countries. Furthermore, while low-income countries’ unemployment rate is more responsive to uncertainty in the short-term, for middle-income nations, it is more sensitive to uncertainty in the long-term. Findings imply that low-income countries suffer more from pandemics than middle-income countries, given the severity of the effects. Therefore, policymakers in low-income countries should give top priority on establishing their own economic strategies and be vigilant in assessing their current economic circumstances.

Keywords: Population, Shocks and Pandemics, Econometrics , Data and Methods, Health and Morbidity

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