American International Journal of Social Science

Decision to undertake Abroad Emigration among Cameroonians
Hélène Kamdem Kamgno, Astadjam Yaouba

Abstract
Literature clearly shows that one of the relevant phenomena of this XXI century is the great mobility of people all over the word. Indeed, this century is particularly characterized by increasing international migration. The phenomenon has gone global as to become one of the major challenging fact by the planet. Migration is even seen as one of the main challenges of this third millennium. Cameroon, a Central African developing country, is not an exception to this phenomenon. In fact, migration flows have become intensive in recent years. The country is even known as a "country of immigration", a "country of emigration", and a "country of transit". The report of the 3rd Cameroon Household Survey (ECAM 3, 2007) and the one of the Survey on Employment and Informal Sector (EESI, 2005) suggest that, since the end of 2001, more than one out of each four households has had at least a migrant among its members (INS, 2008). To help a better orientation of migration policies and programs in Cameroon, this study aims at investigating the determinant factors in the decision to migrate. Based on data from ECAM 3 (2007), the study focuses on emigration in order to identify explanatory factors deciding it. It made the analysis of the profiles of the migrants through a factorial investigation as well as an explanatory one, using the logistic regression method. The findings suggested that the age of the migrant, the region of residence of the migrant, the household living standards, the migrant's level of education and the gender of the household head are, by descending order, the main factors that decide to migrate. The most important of the recommendations made at the end of this study consists on encouraging the socio-professional absorption of unemployed people, by increasing the support to employment programs among unemployed people, like the PAJER-U (Support Program for Rural and Urban Youth).

Full Text: PDF