Migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa in Tunisia: A Storm in a Teacup?

Mohamed Amara ()
Additional contact information
Mohamed Amara: University of Tunis

No 1815, Working Papers from Economic Research Forum

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of sub-Saharan African immigrants on the Tunisian labor market, as well as their economic, social, and psychological integration pat- terns, with a focus on the migration influx since the Tunisian uprising of 2010-11. Using annual micro-level household labor force surveys and data from the last two population censuses on the concentration of immigrants by country of origin, we identify the impact of sub-Saharan Africans on the Tunisian labor market. Furthermore, the pa- per uses the first Tunisia Households International Migration Survey (Tunisia-HIMS) to understand the labor market results of sub-Saharan immigrants and their social integration compared to immigrants of other origin. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) research design, we find a negative and significant immediate impact of sub- Saharan immigrants on the average annual earnings of local workers in micro-firms in the retail trade and food service sectors between 2011 and 2014. After 2014, there is a significant negative impact on employment in low value-added sectors, particularly in the building sector. The results of the Multidimensional Integration Index show that social and psychological integration is particularly challenging for sub-Saharan immigrants, especially for young people, the uneducated and women.

Pages: 22
Date: 2025-12-15, Revised 2025-12-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published by The Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Downloads: (external link)
https://erf.org.eg/publications/migrants-from-sub- ... storm-in-a-teacup-2/ (application/pdf)
https://erf.org.eg/app/uploads/2025/12/1767123529_246_1644266_1815.pdf (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:erg:wpaper:1815

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Economic Research Forum Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Namees Nabeel ().