The Impact of Education on the Behaviour of Labor Supply in Cameroon: an Analysis using the Nested Multinomial Logit Model

This article renders an analysis of the impact of education on labour supply behaviour, particularly in terms of participation decision and the level of employment and unemployment of the active population in the labour market in Cameroon, through the nested logit model. Using data obtained from the database of ECAM III carried out in 2007, we find that individuals who constitute the labour supply being faced with four alternatives (domestic activities, the informal, the public and the private formal sectors) choose to work in the sectors which best values their education. Thus, for these individuals, it is more likely to choose to practice in the sectors associated with lower levels of education than other sectors. Also, these individuals have the tendency of orientating their choices primarily to sectors in which the average level of education is at most equivalent to theirs. Therefore, signals sent by job-seekers to employers, requesting access demand to certain sectors instead of others are obviously determine by their various levels of education. Moreover, participation in a sector of the job market in Cameroon is a decreasing function of average charged income and average worked hours that are established.