African emigration is a growing global phenomenon driven by the demographic divergence between Africa—the world's youngest continent with the fastest-growing population—and the rest of the world, where labour is becoming scarcer.
Sub-Saharan Africa's working-age population will rise by around 700m by 2050, roughly doubling. By 2030 roughly half of new workers entering the global labour force will be from sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile a "first wave" of countries including America, China, Japan, South Korea and all of Europe will see their working-age population shrink by about 340m by 2050, according to a McKinsey report on the "new demographic reality". The support ratio of working-age people to those over 65 in these places dropped from 7:1 in 1997 to 4:1 in 2025, and is projected to reach 2:1 by 2050.
Sub-Saharan Africa sees around 15m people enter the labour market every year but just 3m formal jobs are created. A survey by Afrobarometer found that 47% of Africans in 24 countries had considered migrating and 27% had given it "a lot of thought"—increases of nine and ten percentage points respectively since surveys in 2016-18.
The tendency to migrate from a given country, plotted against GDP per person adjusted for the cost of living, forms a bell curve. Emigration rises as countries approach around $5,000 in income per person, peaks at around $10,000 and declines thereafter. Countries long associated with emigration, such as Mexico and the Philippines, have passed their migratory peak. Meanwhile 94% of sub-Saharan Africans—1.1bn people—live in countries with a GDP per person of less than $10,000.
In 2024 there were more than 45m African migrants living outside their country of origin, according to the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Africans comprised 15% of the world's émigrés, up from 13% in 1990. The share of African migrants living outside the continent rose from 35% in 1990 to 45% in 2024, amounting to 20.7m people—triple the 1990 figure and more than the number of Indians living outside India (18.5m) or Chinese outside China (11.7m).
Between 1990 and 2024 Africans living in Europe increased from 4m to 10.6m—about half of all African migrants outside the continent. Over 4m live in France and 1m in Britain.
In the past decade America overtook France as the country with the largest population of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Africans' share of immigration to America rose from less than 1% in 1960 to 11% in 2020. Net migration from the Caribbean and Africa in the 2010s was twice as high as from Latin America. Four times more Africans arrived in America between 1990 and 2020 than during the slave trade, according to Neeraj Kaushal of Columbia University. Some 42% of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa (and 64% of Nigerian-Americans) aged 25 or above have a degree, versus 33% of the rest of the American population.
More than a quarter of the black workforce in America was born abroad or has parents who were. Research by Rong Fu, Neeraj Kaushal and Felix Muchomba (of Waseda University, Columbia University and Rutgers University respectively) finds that the wave of black migration is narrowing the black-white earnings gap, which had not changed for decades. Black migrants tend to be better educated than both native-born Americans and other immigrants, and tend to settle in richer, whiter neighbourhoods with good schools. The researchers found that if black immigrants lived in the same places as black natives, the earnings gap would widen by up to 9%. Immigrants' sons earn more than those of American-born blacks, though still less than whites; their daughters earn more than white women on average.
In 2024 there were almost 4.7m migrants from Africa in the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), more than tripling since 1990. Reports of abuse are widespread; a survey found that 99% of Kenyans working in the Gulf claimed to have been mistreated by their employers.
Cities such as Yiwu, Zhongshan and Guangzhou are home to thousands of Africans who buy goods to send home. In 2018 there were 80,000 African students in China, more than in America or any other country save France.
Remittances sent home by African emigrants exceeded both foreign direct investment in Africa and overseas aid. One study found that a typical African-trained doctor sends back almost twice as much in remittances as the cost of their initial training. Research by Narcisse Cha'Ngom, a Cameroonian economist, weighing the pros and cons of outward migration on sending countries, concluded that in most cases the benefits outweigh the costs, as measured by the overall impact on GDP per person. The prospect of emigration can increase levels of education at home by creating an incentive for locals to acquire more qualifications—a "brain gain" effect. Some emigrants eventually return home with enhanced skills, and diasporas can help undermine autocratic regimes by spreading democratic values, sending cash that weakens citizens' dependence on crony states and funding the opposition.
A deal struck in 2024 between Kenya and Germany illustrates a model for managed labour migration. Kenya agreed to speed up the removal of illegal migrants in Germany and to help recruit workers at home; Germany pledged support for language skills and vocational training.
Several African governments, including Ethiopia's and Nigeria's, have issued "diaspora bonds" to raise money from émigrés for infrastructure projects. Kenya has a dedicated cabinet ministry for diaspora affairs; its president, William Ruto, has promoted the export of Kenyan workers as policy. Ethiopia has offered to export nurses to Norway and other European countries. Tanzania is planning migration deals with eight countries including the United Arab Emirates.
QOTD: "I used to be lost in the shuffle, now I just shuffle along with the lost."