Economic growth in Africa has not cut fertility as it has done elsewhere in the world and indeed, a 2014 UNICEF report stated that, “The future of humanity is increasingly African”. There are currently 1.1 billion people in Africa, up from just under 200 million in 1950. African children under the age of 18 make up a quarter of the world’s population and by the end of the century, almost half the world’s children may be African. Uganda in particular has one of the highest population growth rates in the world (3.03 percent in 2014) and the country’s population is projected to increase to 104 million by 2050.
The rapid rise of Africa’s population has triggered a multitude of fears: increased possibility of civil strife, decimation of forests, wiping out of endangered species, and how Africa will feed 4 billion people if it can’t feed 1 billion. But Africa is relatively empty; it occupies a quarter of the globe’s landmass but hosts only 15% of its population. For example, there are 137 people per square kilometre in Asia but only 39 in Africa. There is room for growth, so to speak.
On the other hand, most of Europe and Asia are experiencing a significant challenge of an aging population. Although there is modest population growth of 1.2% in Europe, it is significantly lower than in developing countries. Studies show that that the replacement rate in OECD countries, or the average number of children a woman needs to have in order to replace the deaths in the population and maintain the country’s current population is 2.1. But in 2002, birthrates in Southern and Eastern Europe had fallen below 1.3. There have been suggestions that 30 million Europeans of working age will “disappear” by 2030 and by 2050, only 5% of the world’s population will be European.
In Asia, the population problem is dominated by Japan. Japan is the world’s third largest economy but its fertility rate is as low as 1.4. The elderly in Japan compose 25% of the total population compared to less than 5% in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that by 2050, the Japanese population could have dropped by 30 million, from 127 million in 2015 to 97 million by 2050. In India, set to be the world’s most populous country by 2028, fertility rates have dropped from 6 live births per woman in 1960 to 2.3 in 2013. Even East Asia, which once had a demograhic explosion, is experiencing a decline in population growth. The workforce in China had already begun to shrink by 2012. It fell by 2.44 million in 2013 and almost 4 million in 2014 and is expected to have shrunk by over 200 million in 2050. Moreover, with sex selective abortions in favour of boys, there will be fewer Chinese women of child bearing age, 30 million less by 2020. Singapore and South Korea already have the lowest birth rates in the world.
A drop in the working age population poses a huge threat to GDP growth rates. Affected countries will need to find a replacement to population as a source of growth. They could move farther away from labour intensive to more capital intensive productive activities or boost labour participation rates especially of women. But more importantly, they could promote immigration.
The world has witnessed an unprecedented migrant crisis in the past 3 months as thousands of refugees from the Middle East attempt to cross into Western Europe due to the wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Ironically, nearly half of the developed world’s population view immigration as a bad thing. Many believe that immigration has placed excessive pressure on public services and thus to maintain living standards enjoyed by rich nations, people from poorer countries need to be kept out. Many Europeans against immigration also fear that their continent will be taken over by “third world hordes” who do not care for their much cherished historical representations of “Western culture” as we know it.
What many ignore is that migration is the exception rather than the rule in human behavior. Most people would rather stay at home where they have family and social networks than migrate. Even African people. Only 2.1% of Sub-Saharan Africans emigrate, and of those, 63% do so within the region. Nevertheless, migrants contribute significantly to the workforce. In the US and Europe for example, migrants have contributed to over 47% and 70% in the growth of the respective workforces over the last 10 years, especially in declining occupations like machine operations and craft trade and undesirable occupations such as agriculture. Moreover, most immigrants’ fiscal positions were positive between 2007 and 2009, meaning that they paid more taxes to their host countries than the benefits they received.
Ultimately, European and Asian countries will have to accept that immigration is key to their very survival and African countries will have to position themselves strategically to fill the workforce gap. European countries already have immigration friendly policies targeting mainly rich entrepreneurs and students. The EU’s agenda on migration states that Europe should continue to be an attractive destination for “the talent and entrepreneurship of students, researchers and workers”. Japan is still tip toeing around the issue, undecided on the right way forward. To make most of the situation, African countries should invest heavily in human resources who will become the “desired” migrants of tomorrow. This will not only ease pressures at home on the environment, service delivery, and jobs, but also help boost wages as supply of labour goes down and free up revenues for increased investment in development infrastructure. However, we have to be sure not to lose all our best brains. Already, 1 in 9 tertiary educated Africans are living in OECD countries. The task will be to balance the need to ease population pressures by encouraging emigration and retaining the human capital needed to continue to propel the African continent.
Source: Population Reference Bureau (2015)
Maria Nagawa is a Research Associate at Economic Policy Research Centre
