Sub-Saharan Africa’s higher education: investment decisions on human capital in the presence of youth unemployment

The purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic relationship between unemployment and higher education participation. By using panel data covering 40 sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2020, we opt to use a well-developed dynamic panel generalized method of moments estimator. The findings show that the youth unemployment rate has an inverse relationship with higher education enrollment in SSA and more specifically in countries with a low level of human development, independently of gender considerations. However, youth unemployment has a positive but not significant effect on enrollment in the medium-/high-level countries. They also show that youth unemployment positively relates to students’ dropping out. These results imply that improvement is possible in the higher education sector if policymakers would consistently target lower unemployment rates. © 2023 Society for Research into Higher Education.