Title:
Youth Migration, Brain Drain and Economic Development in Nigeria: A Secondary-Data Analysis of Trends and Policy Implication, 2018–2026

Authors:
Ivan Ugochukwu Enebeli, Germany

Abstract:

Since 2018, Nigeria has experienced a marked intensification of youth emigration, popularly termed “japa,” amid sustained macroeconomic pressure, insecurity and weak public-service delivery. This paper examines the core drivers, patterns and economic consequences of youth migration and brain drain in Nigeria between 2018 and 2026, using secondary time-series data and documentary research design. Time-series indicators were compiled from the National Bureau of Statistics, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, the International Organisation for Migration, Afrobarometer and the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics, and organised into nine captured descriptive and comparative tables covering unemployment, inflation, exchange-rate depreciation, minimum-wage purchasing power, diaspora remittances, net migration, destination-country inflows, health-workforce migration intention and youth emigration sentiment. The analysis of the study is framed by Push-Pull Theory, Human Capital Theory and the New Economics of Labour Migration. The research is organised around conceptual model linking economic, social and employment pressures to migration intention, migration behaviour, brain drain and downstream economic consequences, with remittances and diaspora engagements acting as a countervailing pathway. This paper situates that phenomenon within the broader economics of skilled migration and brain drain, using secondary macroeconomic and migration data spanning 2018 to 2026, a period that captures the pre-COVID-19 baseline, the pandemic shock and the far-reaching 2023 exchange-rate and sudden subsidy reforms that followed the change in federal administration. Evidence of the study indicates that the 2023–2024 macroeconomic reforms produced the sharpest simultaneous deterioration in real wages, currency value and high cost of living in the review period, coinciding with documented rise in youth emigration intention and skilled health-worker attrition, the occupational category for which the assembled evidence is strongest and most directly converging, while corresponding evidence for other skilled occupations is comparatively indirect. Remittance inflows have simultaneously reinforced household welfare and foreign-exchange earnings. The study argues that Nigeria faces a self-reinforcing migration-pressure cycle rather than a simple push-factor problem, and concludes with evidence-based, non-punitive policy recommendations centred on real-wage protection, professional retention, security as an economic variable, and structured diaspora engagements.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51505/IJEBMR.2026.11012