One of the 19th century’s more celebrated rags-to-riches figures, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, wrote Through the Dark Continent (1878) about his explorations in Africa. His sensational title was a marketing ploy to boost sales. Stanley coined the term “Dark Continent” because Africa was so mysterious to Westerners back then. Millions followed the exploits of intrepid African explorers.

Africa’s mystique endures. Well-meaning though misguided Westerners tend to assess all peoples by the same metrics they apply to themselves. Africa is a prime example. Perhaps a little less ethnocentrism and a bit more realism are in order, especially as the “Dark Continent” is at last joining the modern world in at least one respect: falling fertility.

Demographic trajectory

Previously in this space, under the heading “Africa Rising?” yours truly cited The Lancet’s latest population stats on sub-Saharan Africa:

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s only region with an above-replacement total fertility rate (TFR), currently estimated from 4.3 to 4.6. They’ve gone from 8 percent of global births in 1950 to 30 percent in 2021, headed to 54 percent by century’s end. While the region’s TFR is falling fast, any sub-Saharan population contraction is at least a century out.

However, according to Macrotrends, Africa’s TFR (4.1) has declined an average of 1.3 percent annually over the last three years. Should this trend persist, Africa will eventually plunge into below-replacement territory. Demographers believe fertility decline is accelerating faster than projected, especially in sub-Sahara Africa. Statista, the European aggregator of figures, projects Africa’s 2030 TFR at 3.8.

Revising projections

Last year The Economist posted “The world’s peak population may be smaller than expected: New evidence suggests Africa’s birth rates are falling fast.” I have previously cited this seminal article; its resonance amplifies as data accumulates:

[A] wealth of new data that suggest that Africa’s birth rate is falling far more quickly than expected. Though plenty of growth is still baked in, this could have a huge impact on Africa’s total population by 2100.

Yet even the UN’s latest projections may not be keeping pace with the rapid decline in fertility rates (the average number of children that women are expected to have) that some striking recent studies show. Most remarkable is Nigeria, where a UN-backed survey in 2021 found the fertility rate had fallen to 4.6 from 5.8 just five years earlier. This figure seems to be broadly confirmed… by USAID… which found a fertility rate of 4.8 in 2021, down from 6.1 in 2010. “Something is happening,” muses Argentina Matavel of the UN Population Fund.

If these findings are correct they would suggest that birth rates are falling at a similar pace to those in some parts of Asia, when that region saw its own population growth rates slow sharply in a process often known as a demographic transition.

In 1972 the Club of Rome, a think-tank, published an influential book, “The Limits to Growth”, warning that consumption and population growth would lead to economic collapse. Now it says the population bomb may never go off: it reckons sub-Saharan Africa’s population may peak as soon as 2060, which is 40 years earlier than the UN’s projections.

Earlier forecasts were off by 40 years! The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?

Jose G. Rimon II of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (now retired) offered a grim assessment: “We have been underestimating what is happening in terms of fertility change in Africa. Africa will probably undergo the same kind of rapid changes as East Asia did.” Seriously? Is Africa following East Asia’s demographic trajectory? Every one of the vaunted “Asian Tiger” countries – China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea – have declining populations, thus shrinking workforces. Today Africa has a tremendous labor surplus but lacks jobs. Many of her best and brightest are migrating to the West.

Demographic transition

Africa is in full-throttle demographic transition. This is nothing new. Once the colonial powers introduced public health, infant mortality declined, leading to accelerated population increase. While colonialism is a double-edged sword, it brought tremendous social and economic progress.

Africa is rapidly urbanizing. Urban women have 30 to 40 percent fewer children than their rural counterparts. Ubiquitous NGOs are successfully promoting contraception, especially among urban dwellers. At a 2014 forum discussing Africa’s demographic future, the Wilson Center’s Jack Goldstone said, “The best contraceptive is economic growth.” A valid point it seems, and quite a few African leaders agree. They are eager to become part of what they see as a rising Global South; high fertility is regarded as an impediment. With fewer births, the working age percentage of the population increases, yielding the much celebrated though fleeting “demographic dividend” that spurs economic growth.

Fleeting? Per the International Monetary Fund:

This [demographic] dividend period is quite long, lasting five decades or more, but eventually lower fertility reduces the growth rate of the labor force, while continuing improvements in old-age mortality speed growth of the elderly population.

That is exactly what is happening in East Asia. Economic growth exploded in the short term. But today’s falling populations are straining old-age pension plans and elder care, things that are not yet politically charged concerns in Africa.

Africa is a treasure trove of natural resources. Both G-7 and BRICS countries are involved in ventures from Cape Town to Cairo. But BRICS has a decided edge: South Africa is a founding member while Egypt and Ethiopia have recently joined. There is an increasing Chinese presence throughout Africa; Western powers recently reduced their presence in the resource-rich Sahel.