Econ_Sep_22

The Economist

September 22nd 2018

For daily analysis and debate on the Middle East

and Africa, visit

Economist.com/world/middle-east-africa

OHN MAGUFULI, the president of Tan-

zania, has strong views about birth con-

trol. He does not see the point. In 2016 he

announced that state schools would be

free, and, as a result, women could throw

away their contraceptives. On September

9th this year he told a rally that birth con-

trol was a sign of parental laziness. Tanza-

nia must not follow Europe, he went on,

where one “side effect” ofwidespread con-

traception is a shrinking labour force.

There seems little danger of that. Tanza-

nia’s fertility rate is estimated to be 4.9, im-

plying that the average woman will have

thatmany children. Europe’s rate is1.6. Tan-

zania is helping drive a continental baby

boom. In 1950 sub-Saharan Africa had just

180m people—a third of Europe’s popula-

tion. By 2050 it will have 2.2bn—three

times as many as Europe. If

forecasts

are right, sub-Saharan Africawill have 4bn

people in 2100 (see chart 1).

That is worrying, although not for the

old reasons. In “An Essay on the Principle

of Population”, published in 1798, Thomas

Malthus claimed that the human popula-

tion was bound to increase faster than the

supply of food, leading to catastrophe. Al-

though Malthus is still admired by some,

the green revolution rubbished his hy-

pothesis. The fear nowis not that countries

will run out of food but that a surfeit of ba-

will hold a conference nextweekabout the

state of theworld. Overall, humanity is be-

coming wealthier. But because birth rates

are so high in the poorest parts of the

world’s poorest countries, poverty and

sickness are that much harder to eradicate.

“Kids are being born exactly in the places”

where it is hardest to get schooling, health

and other services to them, he explains.

There is nothing inherently African

about large families. Botswana’s fertility

rate is 2.6, down from 6.6 in 1960. South Af-

rica’s rate is 2.4. And although the

has a

good record of predicting global popula-

tion growth, it has got fertility projections

badly wrong in individual countries. Sud-

den baby busts in countries like Brazil, Iran

and Thailand caught almost everyone out.

Could Africa also spring a surprise?

The

’s demographers project that

fertility will fall in every single mainland

African countryover the next fewdecades.

They just expect a much slower pace of

change than Asia or Latin America man-

aged when their families were the same

size. It tookAsia 20 years, from1972 to 1992,

to go from a fertility rate above five to be-

low three. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected

to complete the same journey in 41 years,

ending in 2054. Its fertility rate is not ex-

pected to fall below two this century. Be-

cause many Africans marry young (see

next article) the generations turn over

quickly, leading to fast growth.

The reason the

expects change to be

slow in future is that it has been slow until

now. After stagnating economically in the

1990s, countries like Nigeria and Tanzania

grew wealthier in the 2000s. But their fer-

tility rates hardly fell (see chart 2). Nor has

urbanisation transformed family life as

much as you might expect. West Africa is

bieswill retard their development.

Mr Magufuli is right to suggest that Eu-

rope has many old people and could do

with more workers to support them. But

Tanzania’s many children weigh on its

economy, too. Sub-SaharanAfrica’s depen-

dency ratio (the population younger than

20 and older than 64 versus the population

between those ages) is 129:100, compared

with 65:100 in Europe. Sub-Saharan Africa

is expected to have a worse dependency

ratio than Europe even in 2050.

High fertility can also be seen as a glo-

bal problem, says Bill Gates, whose foun-

dation (jointly run with his wife, Melinda)

Demography

Babies are lovely, but...

Africa’s high birth rate is keeping the continent poor

Middle East and Africa

Also in this section

41 Child marriage in Africa

44 French forces in the Sahel

44 Israel’s military preparedness

45 Sta

ving off slaughter in Syria

Definitely lots, and maybe more

Source: UN Population Division

*Births per woman

Sub-Saharan Africa, population, bn

F O R E C A S T

1980 2000 25 50 75 2100

Fertility variants

Medium

High

(fertility

rate* 0.5 more

than medium)

Low

(fertility

rate* 0.5 less

than medium)