Unemployment in Nigeria; A Challenge of Demographic Change?
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With the current population of approximately 182million people (PRB, 2015); Nigeria is the most populous Black
Country in the world. Arguments are ripe whether her ever-growing population is the sole factor responsible also for her
continuous growth of unemployment. To answer this question, this paper extracted secondary data from Population Reference
Bureau (PRB, 2003-2015), United Nations Annex Table (2012), International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2002-2015) and National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS, 2003-2015) to prove whether unemployment is mainly caused by demographic change in Nigeria or
there are other intrinsic factors responsible for this social challenge. A comparative analysis of the population and
unemployment structure of three purposively selected and heavily populated countries in three different continents-Nigeria,
China and USA were undertaken. Results show that population growth is not the SOLE factor responsible for increase in
unemployment in Nigeria as unemployment statistics is stable for U.S. and China while their populations are growing, but the
reverse is the case for Nigeria as both population and unemployment are growing. Recommendations were thereafter made to
address other likely factors identified.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General)