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Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa: How

big will the economic dividend be?
a a
Robert Eastwood & Michael Lipton
a
University of Sussex
Published online: 19 Feb 2011.

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 Population Studies, Vol. 65, No. 1, 2011, pp. 9
35

Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa: How

big will the economic dividend be?

Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton

University of Sussex

In mid-demographic-transition, many Asian countries enjoyed a large demographic ‘dividend’: extra

economic growth owing to falling dependant/workforce ratios, or slower natural increase, or both. We


estimate the dividend, 1985 2025, in sub-Saharan Africa and its populous countries. Dependency and
Downloaded by [Memorial University of Newfoundland] at 05:58 27 November 2014

natural increase peaked around 1985, 20 years after Asia. The UN projects an acceleration of the
subsequent slow falls but disregards slowish declines in young-age mortality and thus, we argue,
overestimates future fertility decline. Even if one accepts their projection, arithmetical and econometric
evidence suggests an annual, if not total, dividend well below Asia’s. The dividend arises more from falling
dependency than reduced natural increase, and could be increased by accelerating the fertility decline (e.g.,
by reducing young-age mortality) or by employing a larger workforce productively. Any dividend from
transition apart, low saving in much of Africa (unlike Asia) means that, given likely natural increase,
current consumption per person is unsustainable because it depletes capital per person.

Keywords: sub-Saharan Africa; demographic dividend; demographic transition; dependency burden;

economic development; fertility decline; labour force; natural increase; population projection;
sustainable development

[Submitted January 2010; Final version accepted August 2010]

1. Introduction: The background ratio in both regions exhibit hump-shaped trajec-

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has experienced, and is
projected to experience, rapid population growth*
from 183 million in 1950 to 863 million in 2010 and
1,753 million in 2050. Yet both the rate of natural
increase (crude birth rate minus crude death rate,
that is, population growth net of migration) and the
dependency ratio peaked around 1985. Projected
falls in these variables in the period 1985
2025
exceed, by about a third and a quarter respectively,
the preceding rises from 1950. This mirrors a
comparable trajectory in much of Asia, where the
peak was some 20 years earlier, and where the fall in
the dependency ratio has been linked to a large
‘demographic dividend’ in the form of more rapid
economic growth (Bloom and Williamson 1998;
Bloom et al. 2000).
This paper asks whether such a dividend can be
expected in SSA during the period 1985
2025, as
natural increase slows and the dependency ratio
falls. At the outset, one important difference must be
noted. While natural increase and the dependency
tories (Figures 1 and 2), SSA’s levels lie markedly
above Asia’s. This matters, because the pace of
development may depend not only on the trajec-
tories of these variables but also on their levels; for
instance, high young-age dependency may slow
development by reducing savings.
Demographic transition
Demographers (e.g., Coale 1973; Montgomery 2009)
identify four stages, of which only the middle two are
part of the demographic transition as such: a pre-
modern equilibrium, with crude birth and death rates
(CBR and CDR) both around 35
45; an urbanizing/
industrializing stage, with CBR unchanged but CDR
falling towards 15; a mature industrializing stage,
with both rates falling towards 10; and post-industrial
equilibrium, with the rates roughly equal at 10 or
fewer. The recent emphasis given by economists to
the effects of changes in the dependency ratio*and
the balance within it between young and old

ISSN 0032-4728 print/ISSN 1477-4747 online # 2011 Population Investigation Committee

DOI: 10.1080/00324728.2010.547946
 10 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
dependants*has led some to break the transition
into three phases (Lee 2003, Figure 6) as follows:
Phase 1 (c.25 years): rising dependency ratio driven
by rising young-age dependency; Phase 2 (c.40
years): falling dependency ratio driven by falling
young-age dependency; Phase 3 (c.50 years): rising
dependency ratio driven by rising old-age depen-
dency. We adopt this scheme, noting that the start of
Phase 2, defined by peak dependency, also approxi-
mately coincides with peak natural increase in Asia
and SSA (Figures 1 and 2). We concentrate on the
possible dividend that SSA may reap in Phase 2.
Crucial for the start, and speed, of Phase 2*that is,
for the move to falling dependency and natural
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increase*is the shift to falling total fertility (TFR)
and hence birth rates. Malthus (1824), using regional
census data from Switzerland and Norway, suggested
that ‘extreme healthiness’ accelerated ‘prudential
checks’. In today’s language, he meant that lower
mortality (we might add: especially among children)
induced behavioural change that reduced TFR and
hence CBR. That remained the standard view of
demographic transition theory at its formulation
(Thompson 1929) and during its modern develop-
ment (Coale and Hoover 1958, pp. 12
13). Falling
child mortality (CMR, used throughout the paper to
mean deaths of children under age 5 per thousand
live-born children) may quantifiably affect three of
the proximate determinants of total fertility (Bon-
gaarts 1978, 1982). They are: post-partum infecund-
ability, use of contraception, and proportion married
(Preston 1978, but see Montgomery and Cohen 1998).
This view of fertility transition has been challenged
on the ground and the evidence that marital age and
fertility are determined jointly with other variables,
notably the contribution of women to the labour
force, within some kind of household optimizing
framework (Becker 1960, 1981; Schultz 1981, 2008).
90
80
Per cent
70
60
50
1950 1970 1990 2010 2030
Year
Dependency Dependency
ratio: Asia ratio: SSA
Figure 1 Dependency ratios: Asia and SSA
Source: UN (2009a)
This view suggests that (i) factors other than falling
child mortality cause fertility decline, notably the
(pre-work) education of females and their wages
(reflecting the opportunity cost of motherhood); and
(ii) that without such factors, child mortality de-
cline*which on its own raises natural increase*may
fail to induce enough fertility decline to reduce
natural increase, let alone reduce it to a post-
industrial equilibrium of zero (Preston 1978; Doepke
2005). Whether falling young-age mortality raises or
lowers the expected (or average) number of surviving
children is unclear. The reduced expected cost of
rearing a new-born to adulthood induces couples to
plan for more surviving children (Tzannatos and
Symons 1989; Birchenall and Soares 2009). Working
the other way is the insurance motive: if couples wish
to have a given chance of attaining a fixed number
(e.g., 2) or more adult offspring, then a reduction in
risk will cause them to plan for fewer surviving
children on average (for example, with zero risk,
they would plan to have exactly 2). Econometric
attempts to resolve such issues have been bedevilled
by the need to control for other determinants of
fertility, such as the education of females, and for the
endogeneity of infant mortality (either because IMR
and TFR are jointly determined by other variables,
or because less frequent births change the risk of
child mortality). Nevertheless, recent literature using
best-practice econometric techniques concludes that
a fall in young-age mortality is the main driver of
TFR decline (Section 2).
Impact of Phase 2 of demographic transition on
growth of income per person: Accounting
Projection of the impact of Phase 2 of the demo-
graphic transition in less developed countries was
3
2
Per cent
1
0
2050 1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050
Year
Natural Natural
increase: Asia increase: SSA
Figure 2 Natural increase: Asia and SSA
Source: UN (2009a)

pioneered in 1957, for India (Coale and Hoover
1958). Losses in Phase 1, and especially gains in
Phase 2, seemed small because both peaks and
subsequent falls in the dependency ratio were
under-projected. For the period 1986
2006, the ratio
was projected to fall only from 52 to 50. This
followed from the projection that TFR would halve
from 1956 to 1986, and stay at the 1986 rate until
2006 (ibid. pp. 233, 322). In fact, after 1956, India’s
TFR fell more slowly than projected: it took until
2000 to halve. Therefore India’s dependency peak
was higher than expected
82 in 1965
and there was
a greater subsequent dependency decline
to 73 in
1985 and 60 in 2005 (UN 2009a)*so that much
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larger economic effects from age-structure change
now seemed plausible. Kelley and Schmidt (1995)
and Bloom and Williamson (1998), disaggregating
fertility and mortality, claimed that the ‘Asian tigers’,
and to some extent South Asia too, had gained a
large demographic dividend as a result of age-
structure change during Phase 2 and, moreover,
that this was the total effect of demographic change.
To set this age-structure hypothesis in context, an
accounting approach is useful. Figures 1 and 2 show
two features of Phase 2 of the transition: age-
structure change and falling natural increase. Each
can be held to yield growth benefits from a simple
accounting standpoint. For age structure, a falling
dependency ratio implies arithmetically that a given
rate of growth of output per worker translates into a
faster rate of growth of output per person. For
natural increase, the slower it is, the less an economy
needs to save in order to maintain total (natural plus
reproducible) capital per person, so the higher is
sustainable consumption per person. In an economy
where natural increase is falling through time,
therefore, the amount that has to be saved in order
to equip extra workers is also falling, so that the
amount left over and available for (sustainable)
consumption is growing through time. To express
this somewhat differently, any natural increase
means that a given stock of capital is ‘diluted’ by
having to be shared among more workers, with the
consequence that falling natural increase delivers a
demographic dividend via reduced dilution.
Accounting thus allows us to calculate two types of
demographic dividend, one from improved age
structure and one from slower natural increase.
These dividends are not strictly commensurate,
because one comprises extra growth of output per
person, and the other extra growth of sustainable
consumption per person. Nevertheless we estimate
and compare the dividends for a number of countries
in Section 4: in SSA the age-structure gains are likely
Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 11
to be some 2
3 times as large as those from falling
dilution of capital.
This age-structure accounting, however, has se-
vere limitations. For it to be the whole story, there
must be no effects of Phase 2 on the time path of
output per worker. However, there may be positive
effects either from age structure itself, if for instance
a fall in youth dependency raises the savings rate, or
from slower natural increase, since this implies that
given savings are spread less thinly, an effect that
tends to raise capital per worker and therefore
output per worker. The first effect fits into the age-
structure hypothesis, simply implying that the effects
are more than arithmetical, while the second does
not. Similarly, for the natural-increase accounting to
be the whole story, we must assume that sustain-
ability can be identified with constant capital per
person, and thus must neglect technological advance,
in particular the possibility that age-structure change
might stimulate such advance. The natural-increase
accounting also has a normative character, calculat-
ing extra savings ‘needed’ for sustainability under
given circumstances, but silent on whether transition
might make these savings either more or less likely
to materialize.
To assess the effect of demographic change on
growth in output per person, there is an alternative
to the accounting approach: econometric estimation.
The literature on this subject, reviewed in Section 4,
strongly supports the age-structure hypothesis. Not
only does falling dependency increase growth arith-
metically, as described above, but the effect*that is,
the demographic dividend*is more than arithmeti-
cal. Moreover, no link from natural increase to
growth is found. These findings cannot, however,
be taken as final because of doubts over the
robustness of the econometric techniques employed.
Overshadowing the demographic dividend in
Phase 2 in SSA, and highly pertinent to any
comparison with Asia, are the consequences of
SSA’s combination, throughout the transition, of
much more rapid natural increase (Figure 2) with
much lower savings rates. In Asia, not only did the
slowing of natural increase raise sustainable con-
sumption per head during the period 1965
2005, but
savings were high enough for the path of develop-
ment itself to be broadly sustainable. This is very
unlikely to be the case in SSA over the period 1985

2025 (Section 4). Slower natural increase will indeed
raise sustainable consumption per head by reducing
the savings that would be needed to sustain capital
per person, but this prospect pales into insignificance
beside the likelihood that savings will fall far short of
the necessary level.
 12 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
Outline and contributions of this paper
Section 2 states the paths of the main demographic
variables during the three phases of transition. We
analyse natural increase rather than the rate of
growth of population, because the causes and con-
sequences of migration would require a major
digression. We then enquire whether UN middle
projections, used in this paper, correctly predict
Phase 2 of the transition. Being global and univari-
ate, they do not allow for region-specific impacts on
fertility of causal variables, such as literacy of
females and young-age mortality. In particular,
where the latter is higher, or falling more slowly,
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than the global norm, these projections may over-
state future fertility decline, and therefore reduc-
tions in both the dependency ratio and the rate of
natural increase.
Section 3 tracks transition data in SSA, its regions,
and its most populous countries. In most cases,
natural increase and dependency peaked (bringing
in Phase 2) at higher levels than in Asia, and about
20 years later, around 1985. This sets the stage for
larger total declines in dependency and natural
increase in Phase 2. However, UN middle projec-
tions to 2030 show annual declines lower in most of
SSA than comparable falls 20 years earlier in Asia,
and even those projections look optimistic. But the
future can be changed. Parts of Asia and Africa
experienced fast reductions in young-age mortality,
and measures were undertaken to transmit these
rapidly into less pro-natalist behaviour. It is techni-
cally possible for much of SSA to do the same. Yet
total fertility decline has been sluggish in some large
countries of West and Middle Africa, and has stalled
in many, but not all, groups and regions of East
Africa (Ezeh et al. 2009). Groups and areas slow to
reduce natural increase come to represent growing
proportions of populations. Most groups and regions
will need faster reduction of child mortality, plus
measures influencing fertility decisions more di-
rectly, for Africa as a whole to reap a large
demographic dividend.
Section 4 moves to estimates of the demographic
dividend. Giving appropriate Asian comparisons, we
evaluate econometric evidence as it affects SSA’s
dividend so far, and present alternative accounting
estimates for the period 1985
2025. As is evident
from Figures 1 and 2, both the dependency ratio and
natural increase in SSA reach a higher peak and
then decline more slowly in SSA than in Asia.
Therefore, the accounting dividends for SSA are
larger in total but smaller per year. Yet, as noted
above, arguably more important than the dividends
from demographic transition as such are the effects
of continuing natural increase, when set in the
context of national savings rates. We estimate these
underlying rates of capital dilution for populous SSA
countries, with comparative estimates for some
Asian countries. Section 5 presents our conclusions.
The main contribution of the paper is to bring
together the elements needed for an assessment of
the demographic dividend in SSA, reviewing past
estimates and presenting some new calculations.
Since all this must rest on demographic projections,
we first set UN middle projections in the context of
some determinants of fertility, and of the extent to
which policy might modify them. Given the demo-
graphy, we calculate two sorts of accounting divi-
dend for the region and its populous countries, and
assess the influential view that the dividend arises
entirely from changes in dependency. We show that,
under current policies, the adverse effects of ongoing
rapid natural increase in much of SSA exceed likely
gains from its reduction during the demographic
transition.
2. Three phases of demographic transition
Defining the phases
In the stylized ‘demographic equilibrium’ before
transition, births equal deaths, typically at high
levels. Age-specific mortality and fertility rates are
trendless, as is age structure, and therefore the
dependency ratio. Phase 1 begins with a sustained
fall in the crude death rate. This raises the rate of
natural increase. Because the reduced deaths (e.g.,
from malnutrition, dysentery, and malaria) are of a
much larger proportion of under-15s than of persons
aged 15
64, the dependency ratio rises substantially.
Towards the end of Phase 1, total fertility starts to
fall. In Phase 2, more and more ‘survivors’ (bene-
ficiaries of earlier falls in under-5 mortality) reach
age 15. Therefore, even though young-age mortality
is still falling somewhat, dependency ratios fall.
Meanwhile the fall in TFR continues. ‘Momentum’,
from rising numbers of women ‘survivors’ reaching
childbearing age, slows the consequent falls in CBR,
but after some years these falls accelerate, leading to
a steady slowing of natural increase. In Phase 3, as
‘survivors’ reach age 65, old-age dependency starts
to rise, and natural increase has little further to fall,
having approached zero.
All three phases, like the preceding equilibrium,
are stylized (Table 1). Fluctuations and crucial
simultaneities, notably between the start of falls in

Table 1 Three phases of demographic transition: trends in key variables
Phase 1
Crude death rate Fall
Young-age mortality Fall, becoming rapid
Total fertility No trend or slow rise, then fall
Crude birth rate No trend or slow rise
Natural increase Rapid rise
Dependency ratio Rapid rise
natural increase and dependency, are neglected. As
we shall see, this is not too damaging for assessing
transition in most parts of Africa. All three phases
are visible in Figures 1 and 2 for Asia, while only
Phase 1 and a prolonged Phase 2 are visible for SSA
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as a whole; however, Phase 3 starts much sooner in
some countries, notably South Africa.
Diversity within Asia and sub-Saharan Africa
Though it is of interest to compare SSA with Asia,
both are regionally diverse, demographically (Table
2 below) and economically. In Africa, Phase 2 has
progressed fastest in the Southern region, with
Eastern SSA slower and West and Central SSA
slowest. South-Central Asia’s transition has lagged
well behind East Asia’s, with West and South East
Asia in between. Tables A1
A3 show some of the
country diversity, with data for India, China, Indo-
nesia, and Thailand, and for the 16 most populous
countries (out of 51) in SSA. These housed 764
million people in 2005, 77 per cent of SSA’s
population. Just four countries*Nigeria, Ethiopia,
DR Congo, and South Africa*contained 42 per
cent.
Diversity within countries also affects transition.
Each phase arrives earlier, and proceeds faster, for
urban, richer, more economically integrated, and less
gender-unequal groups and places. Thus child mor-
tality, total fertility, and hence natural increase and
dependency all fell later and more slowly, and are
now much higher, in North-Central India, above all
in Bihar, than in Southern India, especially Kerala
(Cassen et al. 2004). Arguably Bihar has emerged
from Phase 1 as slowly and recently as Middle Africa,
while Kerala, like Southern Africa, is in Phase 3. For
13 SSA countries in the late 1990s, between the two
most recent Demographic and Health Surveys
(DHSs) ‘unweighted average rural TFR declines by
about 0.3’ but by 0.9 in urban areas ‘[usually] with
fertility initially declining in urban areas [only], then
. . . in both settings but more rapidly in urban places,
and finally . . . more in rural than in urban areas’
Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 13
Phase 2 Phase 3
Fall Slow fall
Fall Slow fall
Fall Fall
Fall Slow fall
Fall Fall, then no trend
Rapid fall Rise
(Shapiro and Tambashe 2002; cf. Garenne and Joseph
2002). The delay in rural changes can retard national
trends in total fertility, natural increase, and depen-
dency during Phase 2, but we do not look at sub-
national trends, except where overlap of phases
within a country has major policy importance.
UN estimates of the past and projections of the
future: impact of young-age mortality on fertility
To estimate demographic dividends in Section 4, we
used past estimates and middle projections from the
UN (2009a), based on censuses and DHSs. The last
census round was 2000
01. All the countries in
Tables A1
A3 except China, Sudan, and Thailand
also have a post-2000 DHS (1989). In SSA, demo-
graphic estimates vary from relatively good (Kenya)
to very rough-and-ready (DR Congo), with past
mortality less disputed (Hill and Amouzou 2006)
than past total fertility; the UN fertility estimates
appear to be in the middle range (Bulatao 2006, p.
62). However, UN middle projections of total
fertility in many countries are probably biased
downwards. The UN model assumes that a country’s
future total fertility depends only on: (i) its TFR in
the latest year that it was measured (typically in
2000
08 for the most recent projections); (ii) past
trends in TFR in other countries after reaching that
country’s latest measured TFR, except that (iii) if
TFR ‘has stalled or where there is no evidence of
[its] decline’, it is ‘projected to remain constant for
[5
10] years’ after which ‘the model projection takes
over’ and TFR falls toward 1.85 (UN 2009b).
UN projections are therefore univariate, that is,
they predict a country’s TFR by past TFRs alone,
and global, that is, based on past TFR paths
worldwide (except when a national TFR is assumed
briefly stationary, as in (iii) above). Such projec-
tions cannot allow for possible country-specific
determinants of future TFR such as its child
mortality, education and earnings of females, and
access to contraception. If these are worse, or
slower-improving, than the global norm, the UN
 14 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
model will project implausibly rapid acceleration of
that country’s fertility decline. For example, com-
pared with global experience of Phases 1 and 2,
infant (and, by implication, child) mortality in
Nigeria is far higher, and has fallen far more slowly
(Table A2). If these drive subsequent total fertility,
its fall in Nigeria will not accelerate steeply, as the
UN projects: in Nigeria from 1985
90 to 2000
05
TFR fell by only 0.32
0.39 per quinquennium, but
from 2000
05 to 2025
30 the UN middle projection
is a fall of 0.60 per quinquennium (UN 2009a).
Where young-age mortality has fallen more slowly,
or stalled at higher levels, than elsewhere, such
fertility projections are too high (UN high projec-
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tions do not help, because they rely on the same
global univariate model). But how important is the
mortality-to-fertility effect?
Recent literature, using best-practice econo-
metrics to reduce problems of reverse and joint
causation, confirms earlier demographic transition
theory: ‘the biggest driver quantitatively [of TFR
decline] remains child survival’ (Conley et al. 2007).
In India in 1981
91, a fall in child mortality of 50
was estimated to have reduced total fertility by 0.20
(out of a total fall in TFR of 0.7), slightly more than
the response to higher literacy of females (Drèze
and Murthi 2001; Murthi 2002). Turning to multi-
country panels, Lorentzen et al. (2008) imply that a
fall of 50 in infant mortality cuts total fertility by
0.73. Angeles (2010, Table 3) estimates an immedi-
ate fall of 0.21 in total fertility owing to a fall of 50
in CMR; he indicates that the fall in fertility is
much greater if one allows for the lagged effect.
Conley et al. (2007, pp. 29
30) find that a fall of 50
in CMR cuts TFR by between 0.5 and 0.9; the
effect is ‘robust across all specifications, and holds if
CMR is replaced with IMR’. Group disaggregations
support such effects. Rural
urban gaps in fertility
(and its decline) among the main childbearing age
groups, especially those aged 20
24, are signifi-
cantly wider where rural-urban child mortality gaps
are greater (Shapiro and Tambashe 2002, Table 3).
The relative impacts of infant, child, and under-
15 mortality on fertility decisions are unclear.
There are few comparable data based on reliable
life tables for under-15 mortality, yet it is the whole
age span 0
15 that affects both rearing costs and
the prospects that children will continue the family
line. Some local findings are based on CMR, but
because worldwide data acceptable to the UN
(2009a) are recent and few (1995, 2000, and 2005
only), reliance on IMR data for time-series estima-
tion is inevitable. In any event, IMR, CMR, and
what we know of under-15 mortality suggest a
similar hierarchy of country disadvantage (IDRC
2002). Countries with higher IMR tend to have
even higher post-1995 child mortality. The UN
(2009a) estimates that, for every 100 infant deaths,
there are 163 child deaths (this includes infant
deaths) in SSA (over 170 in Angola, Mozambique,
and Nigeria), but fewer where IMR rates are lower
(Asia 138, China 129, Thailand 152) (UN 2009a; see
also Hill and Amouzou 2006 for West Africa).
Countries with high infant mortality show even
more child deaths (per hundred infant deaths) in
local life tables, which are more reliable: the
average figures from local surveys are Ethiopia
182, Gambia 251, Guinea-Bissau 203, Ghana 170,
Senegal 153, Zambia 173 (IDRC 2002).


3. Transitions, 1920/50 2030: African
dependency and natural increase in Asian
context
Phase 1
Mortality decline. This led to rising natural in-
crease in most of Africa and Asia by 1930. In the
1930s population rose annually by 0.6 per cent in
China, 1.4 per cent in India, 1.5 per cent in
Indonesia, and over 1 per cent in Congo, Kenya,
Nigeria, and South Africa (Visaria and Visaria 1982,
p. 488; Fage et al. 1986, p. 49; Dawson 1987; Brass
and Jolly 1993, p. 29; Iliffe 1995; Populstat n.d.-a;
n.d.-b; Wikipedia n.d.).
Thus by 1950
55, when the UN’s data series
begins (2009a), Phase 1 had been under way for
some time. From 1950
55 infant mortality declined
through Phase 1, into Phase 2, in all regions, but
much more slowly in SSA, so that by 2000
05 it was
still 95, compared to 47 in Asia. Southern Africa did
better than the rest of SSA until 1985
90, after which
infant mortality rose. Taken on its own, the relatively
slow decline of IMR in SSA should have slowed
natural increase relative to the position in Asia. That
this did not happen was because the path of fertility
was so different in the two regions.
Fertility trajectories. In Asia, TFR fell dramatically,
from 5.7 to 3.5, between 1950
55 and 1985
90; in
SSA it hardly fell at all, with an Asian-scale fall in
Southern Africa and a modest fall in East Africa
offset by rises in Middle and West Africa (Cohen
1993, 1998; Table A1). Even by 2000
05, TFR was
above 1950
55 levels in Burkina Faso and DR
Congo and almost the same in Uganda. Owing to
population momentum, the TFR downturn in late
 Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 15

Phase 1 is translated into a fall in CBR and natural
increase only after a time lag. In many cases (India,
Ghana, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Southern Africa) the fall
in TFR was fast enough for CBR to start to fall,
albeit slowly, almost at once. In East and South East
Asia, the fall in TFR was precipitate and led to early
and sharp falls in CBR.
Dependency and natural increase outcomes. Old-
age dependency in most of Asia and Africa was very
stable throughout Phases 1 and 2. Hence the depen-
dency ratio was largely determined by youth depen-
dency and its changes. Asia’s dependency ratio rose
from 67 in 1950 to a peak of 80 in 15 years, in 1965;
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of SSA. In four more, it peaked in 1980 (and in
Angola in 1995) at 1
3 points above the 1985 level.
Ethiopia, Uganda, and DR Congo peaked in 1995*
at 5
7 points above the 1985 dependency level, not
much compared with the 21- to 25-point (UN-
projected) decline for 1995
2025. Only South Africa
is an outlier, with peak dependency early: 84 in 1970.
Despite variations, it is reasonable to see 1985 as
SSA’s switch point from Phase 1 to Phase 2.
Phase 2
Natural increase. In which countries of SSA is the

SSA’s rose from 82 in 1950 to a peak of 94 in 35 years.
There was substantial country variation (Table A3):
at the extremes, Sudan’s dependency ratio rose
negligibly while Kenya’s rose from 78 in 1950 to
a peak of 113, owing to very high, and at first rising,
total fertility. SSA’s natural increase in 1950
55 was
0.3 per cent per year above Asia’s, and peaked at 0.6
per cent above the Asian peak, but 20 years later.
Dating the peak. How uniform across countries was
the 1985 switch from Phase 1 to Phase 2 in SSA? In
the quinquennium 1980
85, natural increase peaked
in Cameroon, Kenya, and Sudan; Nigeria, South
Africa, and four other ‘populous’ countries were
within 0.1 per cent per year of the peak, and DR
Congo and two others within 0.25 per cent per year.
The only populous outliers, where natural increase
peaked well after the period 1980
85, were Ethiopia
(2.64 per cent per year 1980
85; peak 3.01 per cent
1990
95), Madagascar (2.57 per cent; 3.05 per cent
1990
95), and Burkina Faso (2.99 per cent; 3.47 per
cent 2005
10). As for dependency, it peaked in 1985
in Nigeria, Sudan, and four other populous countries
Phase 2 slowdown in natural increase comparable to
the earlier slowdown in Asian countries? Thirty
years after the country peak, natural increase had
fallen by 1.7 percentage points in China, 0.8 in India
and Indonesia, and 1.5 in Thailand. In only six
populous SSA countries did natural increase peak by
1980, so we can track 30 years of its fall. This was of
‘Asian’ size in South Africa (1.03), Côte d’Ivoire
(0.98), Ghana (0.76), and Sudan (0.70), but only 0.11
in Uganda and 0.20 in Tanzania.
In the other ten populous countries of SSA,
natural increase peaked after 1980. Thus 30-year
trajectories for Phase 2 are partly projections. As
late as 2005
10, natural increase in four of the six
most populous countries*DR Congo, Ethiopia,
Kenya, and Nigeria*ranged from 2.36 to 2.79 per
cent, well above India’s 2.21 per cent peak that
occurred 35 years previously. On the UN middle
projection, these four countries will slow their
natural increase after 2010 more than did India after
1975. However, so far, unlike India 15
35 years ago,
change in these countries has been sluggish: little
decline in total fertility in DR Congo, stalled decline

Table 2 Natural increase and dependency ratio, 1950
55 to peak rate, by region, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

Natural Natural
increase 1950
Natural increase peak Dependency Dependency Dependency ratio
Region 55 increase peak years ratio 1950 ratio peak peak year

SSA 2.15 2.89 1980
85 82 94 1985

East 2.29 2.99 1985
90 85 97 1980
Middle 1.94 3.07 1985
95 82 99 1995
South 2.29 2.52 1970
75 74 85 1965
70
West 2.02 2.87 1980
85 81 94 1985
90
Asia 1.88 2.38 1965
70 67 80 1965
East 1.81 2.42 1965
70 63 76 1965
(China) 1.87 2.60 1965
70 61 80 1965
S. Central 1.84 2.43 1975
80 70 83 1965
S. East 2.08 2.52 1960
70 73 88 1970
West 2.52 2.71 1960
65 74 89 1965

Source: UN (2009a).
 16 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
in Kenya (i.e., no convergence to any global path of
fertility decline), and slow young-age mortality
decline in DR Congo, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, that
is, a weakness in the main driver of fertility decline.
Modelled, not empirical, age-specific death rates in
many African countries, including DR Congo, Ken-
ya, and Nigeria, make it precarious to project
demographic change from past birth and death rates
(IDRC 2002, chap. 6).
In several African countries, HIV/AIDS clouds
any projections for natural increase. In South Africa,
the crude death rate troughed at 8.8 in the years
1990
95, but then rose to 15.1 in 2005
10, auto-
matically reducing annual natural increase by 0.63
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per cent. Plainly, this 0.63 per cent is not part of
transition. In UN 2009b, ‘the impact of HIV/AIDS
on mortality is modelled explicitly . . . where HIV
prevalence among persons aged 15 to 49 was [over] 1
per cent during 1980
2007’, using adult HIV pre-
valence rates from DHSs, and evidence on spread,
treatment, and survival prospects. Although best-
practice methods were used, projections based on
such evidence are inevitably speculative. The impact
of HIV/AIDS on natural increase is further compli-
cated by the effects on fertility, and interactions
between HIV-related fertility and mortality change.
Dependency ratio. So far, SSA’s Phase 2 fall in
dependency is even slower, relative to Asia’s, than
was the Phase 1 rise. Among the populous countries,
only in Kenya and South Africa has dependency
fallen almost as fast in Phase 2 as it did in China,
India, and Indonesia. In the 20 years following its
1985 peak, the all-SSA dependency ratio fell only
from 94 to 86. However, the UN middle projection is
an accelerated fall to 65 by 2030. In most of Africa,
fertility trends have been sluggish. Remarkable
acceleration seems required to drive the projected
declines in dependency. That is especially the case in
countries heavily affected by HIV/AIDS, which
‘hollows out’ the age group 30
50. Thus from 2000
to 2005, despite ongoing falls in total fertility, the
dependency ratio actually rose in Malawi from 96 to
99, and in Mozambique from 88 to 90 (Tables A1
and A3).
Fertility. Among populous countries of SSA, only
South Africa provides a precedent for an absolute
fall in total fertility, from its peak, comparable to
Asia’s. It has also fallen by over two points in Côte
d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Kenya (where it has stalled:
Ezeh et al. 2009). Only in Ghana, South Africa,
Cameroon, and Sudan is TFR now below 5.
Actual and projected fertility change: an
Afro-Asian parallel?
A parallel between South-Central Asia and SSA
makes it useful to compare their fertility behaviour.
In South-Central Asia, total fertility started to fall
significantly from 1965
70, and in most of SSA from
1985
90. In SSA it then fell by 16 per cent in 15
years. The UN (2009a) projects the fall to accelerate
to 22 per cent in the subsequent 15 years, cutting
TFR to 4.2 in the period 2015
20. Indeed, the Phase
2 path of total fertility in SSA has quite precisely
paralleled that of South-Central Asia 20 years ear-
lier. In each quinquennium, the absolute falls in TFR
in South-Central Asia from 1965
70 (5.86) to 1980

85 (4.88) are almost identical to those in SSA from
1985
90 (6.42) to 2000
05 (5.41). Why, then, might
one doubt the UN middle projection that this
parallelism will continue?
First, global projections of a decline in TFR to the
same endpoint in all countries rest, implicitly, on the
assumption that replacement fertility is much
the same everywhere (2.1 lifetime births per woman).
Yet it ranges ‘from less than 2.1 to nearly 3.5 . . . due
almost entirely to cross-country differences in
mortality . . . the current replacement TFR for [East
Africa] is 2.94’ (Espenshade et al. 2003, p. 575). Given
high projected mortality, UN fertility projections
therefore imply that Ethiopia, Madagascar,
Mozambique, Kenya, and Sudan reduce TFR
implausibly close to (current) replacement levels by
2030
35.
Second, one proximate determinant of fertility,
contraceptive prevalence, lags well behind levels
seen at a comparable point in transition in Asia.
For example, among women aged 15
49, prevalence
was over 35 per cent in India in the early 1980s (Ross
et al. 2004; Visaria 2009, p. 188), but only 23 per cent
in SSA in 2003
08 (UNICEF 2010b: DR Congo 21,
Ethiopia 15, Kenya 39, Nigeria 15, South Africa 60).
Contraceptive use (given availability, which is not
considered here) depends on demand. This, like age
of marriage and frequency of cohabitation, depends
partly on political attitudes and cultural norms.
Many allege that these are more pro-natalist in
SSA than elsewhere, which may help to account for
cross-country variation in desired number of chil-
dren (Westoff 2010). Yet such attitudes and norms
vary greatly across SSA, just as they do across Asia,
and seem unlikely to explain why contraception (and
probably other proximate determinants of fertility

decline) lags well behind Asian experience in most
of the populous countries of SSA.
Might the apparent reluctance to adopt contra-
ception (and, more generally, weaker prospects for
fertility decline than in Asia) arise because women’s
advancement in SSA lags behind Asia’s of 20
25
years previously? It is well established that later
marriage, lower marital fertility, and the use of
contraception are advanced by better opportunities
for women. However, the main proxy for these, adult
literacy of females, is not worse in most of Africa
than in India 20
25 years earlier: India’s 1981 rate of
30 per cent (RGCC 2001) was exceeded in 2003
06
by many populous African countries, including, of
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the few with reliable DHS data, Nigeria (55 per
cent) and Uganda (49 per cent), though not Burkina
Faso (12 per cent) (Huebler 2008).
Third, we saw that by Asian standards most of
Africa has seen slow, or (in several countries most
affected by HIV/AIDS) reversed, falls in young-age
mortality. To the extent that such falls drive fertility
decline, the UN’s projection model will overstate it
in much of Africa.
Finally, within-country variation in Africa impedes
rapid national fertility decline arithmetically. As in
India (Cassen et al. 2004, pp. 98, 105
106), total
fertility is increasingly influenced by regions (and
rural sectors) where it is persistently high. So, big
falls in TFR, and therefore in dependency and
natural increase in Phase 2, increasingly depend on
progress among SSA’s poor, rural people. Yet a 2002
study, using the most recent DHSs for 24 SSA
countries, found that average rural TFR was 6.4
compared to an urban average of 4.6; for the 13
countries with repeat surveys, all but two showed a
widening rural
urban gap (Shapiro and Tambashe
2002). Urban
rural and overall inequality is greater
in most African countries than in most of Asia
(Eastwood and Lipton 2004), thus impeding the
education of females, contraceptive availability, and
child nutrition and preventive medicine in lagging
areas. Assuming roughly similar prospects for urba-
nization, this leaves most of Africa worse placed
than was Asia to provide preconditions for reduced
TFR among their rural majorities.
In Middle Africa, the slow pace of past fertility
decline makes UN middle projections of depen-
dency especially vulnerable. In the period 1950
95
the ratio rose, to peak at 99. In the years 1995
2005
it fell to 95. Yet it is projected to fall sharply to 63 by
2025
30 because by then TFR, which was 6.0 in
1950
55 and even higher, at 6.2, in 2000
05, is
Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 17
projected to fall to 3.7. There is no sign of the sharp
fall in total fertility without which Middle Africa will
not approach UN middle projections of declining
dependency. For these to happen, big changes in
policy or institutions seem needed.
Improving the complex of young-age mortality
and fertility in SSA: Prospects and policies
The mortality prospect. To a considerable extent,
fertility decline depends on previous falls in young-
age mortality. Here too, most of SSA has lagged far
behind Asia, yet the UN (2009a) projects rapid catch-
up ‘on the basis of [regional] models of change of life
expectancy [with] smaller gains the [higher] the life
expectancy reached’ (UN 2009b). In other words,
regional and national age-specific mortality*like
fertility*is projected on a univariate model impos-
ing convergence to global trends: where mortality
remains high, accelerating decline is projected.
Asia cut IMR by 51 per cent in 1965
95; the
projection for 1995
2025 is 46 per cent. Yet for
the same periods SSA achieved only 27 per cent; the
projection is 41 per cent. Some countries would
achieve projected falls merely by resuming past falls
in IMR (as in Kenya) or at least consolidation or
modest improvement (Burkina Faso, Cameroon,
Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, Sudan), but most country
projections seem unduly optimistic. Infant mortality
in DR Congo, having fallen 10 per cent (from 143)
from 1965 to 1995, is projected to fall three times as
fast from 1995 to 2025, and in Nigeria the rate of
decline is projected to double. Does recent evidence
support such accelerations?
During the years 1990
2000, 17 countries in SSA
had two DHSs. Infant mortality rose in nine (sig-
nificant at 5 per cent in four), with significant falls only
in Malawi, Niger, and Nigeria (Mahy 2003, p. 31).
South Africa (among others) has slipped back, mainly
as a result of HIV/AIDS. In the twenty-first century,
Kenya reversed a similar setback: IMR decreased
from 119 in 1969 to 66 in 1989, increased to 77 in 1999
and 2003, but then resumed its decline to 52 in 2008

2009 (KNBS and ICF Macro 2010, pp. xv, 3). As
regards child mortality, UNICEF (2010a) shows it
falling at 1.8 per cent per year in 2000
05, and at the
same rate in 2005
08 (to 144). Other careful recent
reviews of censuses and quality-controlled micro-data
also find slow, non-accelerating falls in CMR (and
IMR) (UNICEF, WHO, World Bank and UN Popula-
tion Division 2007; UN 2009a (revised 1 August 2010);
 18 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
Macro International Inc., for DHSs, 2010; UNICEF
2010b). A dissenting view, apparently based on the
use*and trust*of a very wide variety of data sources,
is Rajaratnam et al. (2010).
Whatever the past trends, Asian and some African
experiences show that rapid improvements in child
mortality are feasible (Table A2; Conley et al. 2007).
In SSA, most child mortality is due to the interaction
of malnutrition with gastro-intestinal infections and
malaria, and in some countries to HIV/AIDS. For
the 60 per cent of SSA population at high malaria
risk, P. falciparum alone directly causes 28 per cent
of all child deaths. Finding and delivering a vaccine
against all forms of malaria would cut child mortality
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by over a third. Even with today’s medical knowl-
edge, West and Middle African infant mortality can
be pushed far below its 2000
05 level of 100
115
(Snow and Omumbo 2006, p. 202), as Ghana’s rate
(70) shows. In Benin between the 2000 and 2006
DHS rounds, ‘increased possession of bed nets led to
a decrease of about 21 percent in what [under-5]
mortality would have been without the increased
possession’ (Rutstein et al. 2009, Abstract and pp.
16
7). SSA has seen huge rises in public health
expenditure to combat malaria, tuberculosis, and
HIV/AIDS. However, this is mostly aid-financed; a
lasting impact requires embedding the largely pre-
ventive measures in national politico-administrative
systems. This may not occur swiftly. South-Central
Asia last saw today’s rate of West African infant
mortality around 1980, and took 25 years to get it
down to a still-high rate of 60. As noted earlier, even
maintaining past rates of fertility decline in most
African countries (let alone accelerating them on the
Asian pattern) will require falls in fertility among
areas and groups where it is particularly high. To
facilitate this, measures to reduce young-age
mortality*principally, affordable access to preven-
tive and primary health care*must increasingly be
spread to poorer rural and slum areas and groups.
A paradox. There is a paradox about expecting, let
alone requiring, such a policy to strengthen Phase 2
of the transition. Especially where child mortality is
still very high, effective action to cut it*though
needed for big medium-term cuts in natural increase
and dependency*will for some years increase them.
Can this time lag be reduced? Thompson (1959)
thought 25 years was the normal lag in Asia. The raw
data, and the econometric literature reviewed above,
hint at a shorter lag, but do not resolve the issue. We
can see big country differences ex post, and can be
sure that policy matters. What is crucial is integrated
policy on young-age mortality and total fertility. They
are mutual causes, and need joint solutions. Data
‘from all 52 countries [with DHS surveys] between
2000 and 2005 [except] India’ show that ‘if all women
would wait at least 24 months to conceive again,
under-five deaths would fall by 13 per cent[, and if] 36
months [by] 25 per cent’ (Rutstein 2008, pp. 14, 70

1). The processes of lowering under-5 mortality and
fertility in Africa are well under way, even if mostly
slower and less visible than in Asia at a comparable
stage of transition. Africans are used, therefore, to
mortality declines, and to reviewing the conse-
quences for their fertility decisions. It is reasonable
to expect a shorter lag between falling young-age
mortality and the fertility response*and hence a
quicker, more vigorous Phase 2*if couples know
that access to contraception, improved education and
prospects for women, and measures to reduce child
mortality are being tackled jointly. Put another way,
these three (expensive) objectives are complemen-
tary: spending on each is usually more cost-effective
if accompanied by spending on the others. Putting
family planning in the context of child health has
much more than rhetorical importance.
We now set aside the above concerns. We assume
that middle UN projections of falls in dependency
and natural increase, for SSA and each region and
populous country, are correct*or will be made so by
changing policies and institutions. What demo-
graphic dividend can be expected from 1985 (the
posited start of Phase 2) to 2025, via lower depen-
dency ratios and slower natural increase?
4. Economic effects of demographic changes
Causal channels from demography to output per
head
Dilution of natural capital. If the constraint repre-
sented by natural resources, such as (quality-
adjusted) land or water, is binding, then a rise in
the number of people will reduce steady-state GDP
per head. Niger, whose population is projected by
the UN to grow from 13 million in 2005 to 58 million
in 2050, is an example of an agrarian economy with a
fast-growing population, where such a mechanism
may seem potentially important. Another example
appears to be Rwanda (André and Platteau 1998).
Also, a sufficient rise in population (density) might
trigger progressive environmental degradation, in
which case there would be a link to the growth rate
as well as the level of GDP per head. An example
is the account of environmental collapse on Easter
Island by Diamond (2005, p. 118), which he

describes as ‘the clearest example of a society that
destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources’.
The population is believed to have declined by the
end of the eighteenth century by some 70 per cent
from the peak reached in the period 1400
1600;
deforestation of the island reached a peak in about
1400 and was complete by the end of the 1600s.
Increasing returns to population via the rate of
technical advance or the sharing of infrastructure
overheads. Extra people may raise long-run in-
come per person, via higher density. This may
accelerate research and invention (Kremer 1993;
Simon 1996): ‘exogenous’ advances can be shared,
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and incentives to invent and innovate are increased
by the prospect of returns in larger markets. Higher
density may induce land-saving agricultural innova-
tions (Boserup 2005). In SSA it has sometimes
stimulated environmental improvement (Tiffen
et al. 1994; see, however, Zaal and Oostendorp
2002), some forms of mechanization (Pingali et al.
1987), and rural roads in isolated regions (Tiffen et
al. 1994, pp. 102
104). However, evidence is lacking
that such mechanisms are widespread in SSA.
Dilution of reproducible capital (Solow model). In
economic models that allow only for reproducible
capital, rises in the number of people lead only
temporarily to capital dilution (falls in capital per
head) and lower output per head. To see this in an
idealized way, consider a once-for-all instantaneous
10 per cent rise in population (and workforce).
Capital per head falls by 10 per cent at once, but
the extra workers are productive, generating extra
savings, which cause capital per head to begin to rise
again. This compensating capital deepening is, how-
ever, self-limiting, because*given diminishing
returns*rises in capital per head raise the propor-
tion of savings per head that must be devoted to
replacing worn-out machines (and equipping new
workers if there is an underlying rate of population
growth greater than zero). Therefore, in the long run,
capital per head and output per head return to their
initial equilibrium values. Similar reasoning implies
that, as opposed to a one-off rise in population, a
sustained rise in its rate of growth does permanently
lower capital per head and output per head. In
practice the distinction made here is less sharp than
it appears, since simulations suggest that ‘tempora-
rily’ may mean many ‘for decades’ (Sato 1963).
Age-structure effects. The fall in the dependency
ratio in Phase 2 of the demographic transition yields
a straightforward economic benefit as follows. De-
Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 19
note output by Y, population by N, the population of
working age by WA, and the percentage growth rate
of any variable x by g(x). Then by definition:
gðY=NÞ ¼ gðY=WAÞ þ gðWA=NÞ (1)
Assume, just in this paragraph, that the given
demographic change has no impact on g(Y/WA).
Then, if the demographic transition causes the
working-age share (WA/N) to grow by an extra 1
per cent (e.g., at 1 per cent instead of 0 per cent per
year), there will be an equal rise of 1 per cent in the
rate of growth of output per person. We refer to this
as the arithmetic age-structure dividend. It can be
linked directly to the change in dependency, since
g(WA/N)  g(1 dependency ratio). A falling
dependency ratio implies a rising working-age share
and, arithmetically, a faster rate of growth of output
per person.
Going beyond this is the age-structure hypothesis,
which in what we call its strong form says that all the
effect of demographic change (of any kind) on
output per person comes through changes in the
working-age share (equivalently, through the depen-
dency ratio): whether the magnitude of this effect is
only arithmetic, as above, or larger (or smaller) than
that is to be determined econometrically. The weak
form of the hypothesis says that all the effect comes
through the age structure, allowing for the possibility
that, for instance, the effects of young and old
dependency might be different. What the age-
structure hypothesis excludes are any effects of
population growth per se on output per person.
To explore this hypothesis from the standpoint of
a model in which all capital is reproducible, it is
helpful to decompose the sources of growth of
output per person using an aggregate production
function.
Let Y T.F(K, L), where T.F(K, L) is a constant-
returns-to-scale production function with capital K,
employed labour L, and technology parameter T;
technological advance is represented by a rise in T.
Denote the labour force by LF. Then we can
decompose g(Y/N), in a slightly different way from
(1), as follows:
gðY=NÞ ¼ gðY=LÞ þ gðL=NÞ (2)
¼ ½gðTÞ þ a:gðK=LÞ
þ ½gðL=LFÞ þ gðLF=WAÞ þ gðWA=NÞ (3)
where a 0 is another technological parameter: the
elasticity of output per head with respect to capital
per head.
Equation (2) breaks down growth in GDP per
head into growth in labour productivity (Y/L) and
 20 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
growth in the ratio of employment to population (L/
N). Equation (3) breaks down each of these compo-
nents. Labour productivity growth comes either
from technological advance (g(T)) or capital dee-
pening (g(K/L)). The ratio of employment to
population can rise from a fall in the unemployment
rate (L/LF rises), a rise in the participation rate (LF/
WA), or a rise in the working-age share of the
population (WA/N). For simplicity, this assumes that
all labour force participants are of working age.
To bring out the meaning of the strong form of the
age-structure hypothesis, consider any demographic
change whatsoever and use ‘D’ to represent its
effects on any variable. Then the hypothesis can be
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written in proportional form as
DgðY=NÞ ¼ cDgðWA=NÞ (4)
where g is a parameter, inserted to leave open the
question whether the effects of changes in the
working-age share are just arithmetical (g1) or
more or less than that. For instance, as above, if the
working-age share has been constant (g(WA/N)  0)
and the demographic transition causes it to start
rising at 1 per cent per year, then if g 1 the growth
of GDP/head is raised by 1 per cent per year.
Pursuing this further, we can write (3) in ‘changes’
form thus:
DgðY=NÞ ¼ ½DgðTÞ þ a:DgðK=LÞ
þ ½DgðL=LFÞ þ DgðLF=WAÞ
þ DgðWA=NÞ (5)
which implies, after substitution of (4) and rearran-
gement:
½DgðTÞ þ a:DgðK=LÞ þ ½DgðL=LFÞ þ DgðLF=WAÞ
¼ ðc  1Þ:DgðWA=NÞ:
(6)
Equivalently
½DgðTÞ þ a:DgðK=LÞ þ ½DgðL=WAÞ
¼ ðc  1Þ:DgðWA=NÞ: (7)
Continuing with the special case g1, implying that
the right-hand sides of (6) and (7) are zero, the
strong form of the age-structure hypothesis is then
equivalent to the claim that the terms on the left-
hand sides add to zero (with g1 they would have to
add to more than zero, if the demographic change
was improving the age structure, i.e., Dg(WA/
N) 0).
For example, suppose there is a rise in the rate of
population growth accompanied by a rise, not
necessarily the same, in the rate of growth of the
working-age population. From (6) we see that in this
case, the net effects via (i) productivity growth
(technological advance increased capital per
worker) and (ii) unemployment and participation
rates, have to add to zero. (i) and (ii) correspond to
the two square-bracketed terms in both (6) and (7).
Might the effects via each of (i) and (ii) be zero?
Using (7), for (b), this would mean that employment
growth was just keeping up with faster growth in the
working-age population (Dg(L/WA)  0). Then for
(i), if there were no effect on technological advance,
there would have to be faster capital accumulation,
financed either by higher domestic savings or capital
inflow, so that faster employment growth was not
reducing capital per worker. The effects could add
up to zero in other ways: for instance, there might be
some capital dilution as a result of insufficient
savings that was being offset by faster (Boserupian)
technological advance. Or else females’ labour
market participation might be raised: if the unem-
ployment rate was unaffected, then, from (6), the
contribution from (ii) would be positive. Summing
up, for growth of output per person not to fall as a
result of faster population growth, something has to
offset the extra capital dilution that this brings
about.
Nevertheless, the econometric literature has
claimed not merely that the age-structure hypothesis
is true, but that the effects are greater than
arithmetical: g 1. As noted above, there are
mechanisms that might account for this. A fall in
the dependency ratio*especially the fall in the
young dependency ratio that a fall in fertility will
bring about*may well induce more participation of
females in the labour force and raised savings. As
regards savings, if the population is considered as
consisting of dissaving dependents at both ends of
the age spectrum plus saving workers in the middle,
then the early consequences of a fall in fertility will
be to raise savings ratios, by reducing the weight of
young dissavers in the population.
If falls in fertility simultaneously raise females’
participation and savings, then an appealing scenario
presents itself: at the same time as a rise in females’
participation is swelling the labour force, both
financial and labour-market conditions will be tend-
ing to favour the investment that will facilitate
gainful employment of the extra labour. The extent
to which raised domestic savings are a necessary
ingredient of this naturally depends on how impor-
tant are barriers to the international mobility of
capital.

What can the data tell us about the consequences
of demographic change for SSA development?
Evidence from cross-country regressions. The
mainstream economics literature on the conse-
quences of demographic change for development
has been dominated by cross-country regression
analysis. Cross-country growth regressions, founded
in the ‘convergence’ framework described below,
have sought to quantify both capital-dilution and
age-structure effects of demographic change on the
growth rate of output per head. Some of this work
has used a pure cross section of countries, with the
dependent variable being, say, their growth of output
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per head in the period 1965
90; other work has also
sought to exploit within-country variation over time,
and has used panel data, with the dependent variable
being growth over several 5-year or 10-year periods.
The use of the cross-country regression method has
not been confined to growth regressions. The finding
by some of large age-structure effects has motivated
others to shed light on the mechanisms, looking
especially for age-structure effects on savings. Cross-
country regression methods have also been used to
look for effects on poverty, conditional on growth
(Eastwood and Lipton 1999).
One reservation should be noted. The research
aims to give evidence of causal links from demo-
graphy to development, but ultimately what is
exhibited is correlation. Correlation between X and
Y may reflect causation from X to Y, but also
possible are reverse causation from Y to X and
incidental association, reflecting causal links from
some omitted variable to both Y and X. In practice,
as shown below, these possibilities are very hard to
exclude. This has led to scepticism among econo-
mists about the usefulness of the method.
Cross-country growth econometrics has, overwhel-
mingly, been based on the so-called ‘convergence’ or
‘technology-gap’ framework (Barro 1991, 1997;
Kelley and Schmidt 2005, 2007). The underlying
idea is that economic growth is partly a matter of
‘catch-up’. Even if a less developed country has low
capital per worker, it is rising through time*and
taking productivity up with it*for two reasons. First,
domestic savings, plus inflow of capital from abroad,
is more than enough merely to equip new entrants to
the labour force with as much capital as existing
workers have. Second, the country may be using
technology well inside the global technology frontier,
and deriving some growth from closing this
Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 21
technology gap. From this comes the idea that a
given country at a given time has a steady-state
equilibrium value of (labour) productivity, defined
as what productivity would be if the gaps were closed,
and that productivity growth depends partly on the
gap between actual and steady-state productivity. In
spite of its name, the convergence framework does
not imply that convergence will necessarily be
observed, since international gaps in steady-state
productivities could exceed those in actual produc-
tivities, perhaps because of low savings rates or rapid
natural increase in some poor countries (on diver-
gence in practice, see Pritchett 1997). Evidence on
this for SSA is explored in the last part of this section.
A demography-oriented elaboration of the con-
vergence framework is as follows:

gðY=LÞ ¼ dððY=LÞ  ðY=LÞÞ: (8)
This is the ‘convergence’ hypothesis: the rate of
growth of productivity, g(Y/L), depends on how far
productivity falls short of its ‘steady-state’ value, (Y/
L)*. d is the speed of convergence, assumed constant
across time and space.

ðY=LÞ ¼ Xb (9)
where b is a vector of coefficients and X is a vector
of variables that are held to influence steady-state
productivity. Those employed by Barro (1997) in-
clude education (of males, secondary and tertiary),
health (e.g., life expectancy), the share of govern-
ment consumption in GDP, and proxies for the rule
of law and the robustness of democratic institutions.
Demographic variables may also be included. The
Solow model implies, as noted above, that faster
population growth lowers (Y/L)*; higher population
density might raise it.
gðY=NÞ gðY=LÞ þ gðLÞ  gðNÞ
¼ gðY=LÞ þ gðWAÞ  gðNÞ (10)
The first part of (10) is an identity; the second part
replaces g(L) with g(WA), by assuming that
unemployment and participation rates are constant
through time.
gðY=NÞ ¼ / þ dXb  dðY=LÞ þ c1 gðWAÞ
 c2 gðNÞ þ e (11)
Equation (11), used by Bloom and Williamson
(1998) and Bloom and Sachs (1998), is derived by
eliminating (Y/L)* and g(Y/L) between (8) and (10)
and making three amendments: (i) a constant f is
 22 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
added to allow for labour-augmenting technical
progress at the same rate in all countries; (ii)
coefficients g1 and g2 are inserted, allowing the
age-structure hypothesis to be tested rather than
imposed; (iii) an error term o is added.
In Bloom and Williamson and Bloom and Sachs
the dependent variable is the annual growth rate of
GDP per head over the period 1965
90, and the
sample of countries is all those (developed and less
developed) for which data can be obtained. Bloom
and Williamson ask how far the relatively rapid
growth in East Asia is traceable to the demographic
transition in that region; Bloom and Sachs ask
whether relatively slow growth in Africa can be
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explained by a combination of geographic and
health variables, included in vector X, together
with the lack of a demographic transition.
The first empirical question is whether age-
structure effects and capital-dilution effects are
both discernible. The strong version of the age-
structure hypothesis is represented by g1 g2 in
(11), since equal rises in the rates of population and
labour force growth then have no net effects on
growth in GDP per head. If ‘Solow-model’ capital
dilution matters as well, then (g1 g2) should be
significantly positive. Most studies employing cross-
country growth regressions do not have age-structure
effects as a prime focus, so they suppress g(L) (in
effect imposing g1 0) and include g(N) to test for
capital dilution; generally speaking significant capi-
tal-dilution effects are not found (Kelley and
Schmidt 1995). Bloom and Sachs and Bloom and
Williamson similarly find no evidence of capital
dilution, but they do find a more-than-arithmetical
age-structure effect. Thus the hypothesis that g1 g2
is not rejected, and when g1 g2 g is imposed, the
estimate of g is significantly greater than unity.
Bloom and Williamson attribute about a third of
the ‘economic miracle’ in East Asia to the age-
structure demographic dividend that East Asian
countries enjoyed during the period 1965
90.
In their paper on Africa, Bloom and Sachs begin
with a version of (11) which excludes the demographic
variables, so that only initial GDP per worker, three X
variables (trade openness, a proxy for the quality of
institutions, and the central government deficit), and
an Africa dummy are included. One might expect the
savings rate to be included as an X variable, but it is
excluded on the ground that it should be considered
endogenous, that is, dependent on the other X
variables. The coefficient on the Africa dummy
indicates an unexplained shortfall of growth in Africa
of about 2.2 per cent per annum (p.a.). Then the X
vector is expanded to include variables representing
geography and health, and g(L) and g(N) are also
included. Geography is proxied by the percentage of
land in the tropics and coastal and inland population
densities, and health by life expectancy at birth
in 1965. Expanding the X vector in this way works,
in that the ‘Africa effect’, as measured by the dummy,
is eliminated. Once the hypothesis that g1 g2 is
accepted, the regression is re-run to impose this and
the estimated age-structure effect is represented by a
gamma of between 1.5 and 3.5, with the higher of
these figures being obtained if the sample is restricted
to African countries (Bloom and Sachs 1998, Table 6).
As in Bloom and Williamson, g can be interpreted
straightforwardly as a multiplier to be applied to the
‘arithmetic’ dividend in (10), potentially explicable
via the savings and participation effects noted earlier.
In Table 3 we present estimates of this ‘arithmetic’
dividend for SSA and its 16 most populous countries,
with some comparative data for Asia. Projected
dependency ratios are UN ‘medium variant’ ones
(so that projected falls may be exaggerated, as
argued earlier) and the dividends are calculated
using equation (2) above with gamma equal to unity.
A comparison of SSA 1985
2025 with Asia 1965

2005 shows a projected SSA arithmetic dividend of
0.32 per cent p.a., compared with 0.41 per cent for
Asia and 0.52 per cent for East Asia. South Africa’s
early transition is visible*it is projected to enjoy a
dividend equal to that of Asia over the period 1965

2005. Among the populous SSA countries, those
with the largest projected dividends are those where
Phase 2 of the demographic transition is well
established*Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, and Sudan
are all projected to enjoy a dividend of 0.4 per cent
or more. Clearly, if gamma really were as high as 3.5
for African countries, then in these countries at least,
the age-structure demographic dividend in prospect
would be substantial (e.g., 1.9 per cent p.a. for Kenya
over the period 1985
2025).
By including population densities in X, Bloom and
Sachs allow for both the positive effects via increas-
ing returns and the negative ones via the dilution of
natural capital discussed earlier. While, in the model,
X variables are supposed to affect growth only via
the steady-state level of GDP per worker, (Y/L)*,
and thereby the productivity ‘gap’, their estimating
equation would evidently also pick up unmodelled
country-specific effects on the rate of technical
advance (i.e., on f). They find a significantly positive
coefficient on coastal density and an insignificantly
negative one on interior density, results which (at
face value) give evidence for ‘increasing returns’, but
not ‘natural capital dilution’.
 Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 23

Table 3 Age-structure dividends (g 1), countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and regions and selected countries of Asia,
selected years

Dependency ratios Dividends

1950 1965 1985 2005 2025 1965
2005 % per year 1985
2025 % per year

SSA 82 88 94 86 71 0.03 0.32

E SSA 85 92 96 90 74 0.03 0.30
Ethiopia 89 85 90 92 70 0.09 0.28
Kenya 78 108 112 83 71 0.32 0.54
Madagascar 71 92 94 90 67 0.03 0.37
Malawi 95 93 101 99 86 0.08 0.19
Mozambique 80 84 92 90 73 0.08 0.26
Sudan 89 89 91 79 58 0.14 0.47
Tanzania 93 93 96 91 82 0.03 0.19
Uganda 85 97 102 108 88 0.14 0.18
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M SSA 82 86 96 95 75 0.12 0.28

Angola 79 92 99 95 76 0.04 0.31
Cameroon 76 82 96 83 66 0.01 0.42
DRC 90 88 96 101 78 0.17 0.24
S SSA 74 85 80 58 54 0.39 0.39
South Africa 73 84 77 56 53 0.41 0.36
W SSA 81 85 94 86 70 0.01 0.33
Burkina Faso 75 81 100 92 79 0.15 0.28
Côte d’Ivoire 83 85 93 82 66 0.04 0.38
Ghana 91 89 93 76 62 0.18 0.44
Nigeria 81 87 95 86 67 0.01 0.39
China 61 80 56 42 46 0.59 0.17
India 68 82 73 60 47 0.32 0.41
Indonesia 76 81 72 51 43 0.45 0.46
Thailand 83 93 63 43 48 0.75 0.24
Asia 67 80 67 53 48 0.41 0.30
E Asia 63 76 55 43 47 0.52 0.13
SC Asia 70 83 77 61 49 0.32 0.43
SE Asia 73 87 74 53 46 0.50 0.44
W Asia 74 89 81 61 50 0.40 0.47

Source: UN (2009a).

How credible are these cross-country findings?
Unfortunately, such models are subject to important
econometric reservations. Consistency of the para-
meter estimates requires that the error term in (11)
is independent of the included regressors. There are
reasons to doubt this independence here (Udry
1998). First, the error term amounts to the total
effect on the growth of GDP per head of all relevant
variables that are not included as regressors. It is
implausible that such variables are uncorrelated with
the level of GDP per head in 1965, which is one of
the regressors. There will surely be omitted serially
correlated variables that have affected national
growth rates both before and after 1965, creating
an incidental association between error term and
regressor. Problems of endogeneity will also affect
other regressors. In particular, causation is likely to
run in both directions between growth in GDP
per head and population growth; cross-section
regressions cannot tell us how much of the negative
association between these two variables is attribu-
table to reverse causation from growth of GDP per
head to population growth.
One way of alleviating such endogeneity problems
has been to use a panel of data, allowing a particular
application of the method of instrumental variables,
described below. Kelley and Schmidt (2005, 2007)
use the same data period as Bloom and Williamson
and Bloom and Sachs but split the data into three
decades plus a quinquennium (for 1990
95). Their
estimating equation is the same as (11), although its
conceptualization is a little different. Their X vector
includes a set of politico-economic variables (de-
rived from Barro’s work, noted earlier), alongside
four demographic variables: youth and old-age
dependency ratios, population and population den-
sity. The authors argue persuasively that the right
way to model age-structure effects is to isolate the
 24 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
arithmetical effect in the term [g(W) g(N)], while
hoping to pick up effects on savings*effects that
may, as they note, affect not only the steady state but
the speed of convergence towards it*via disaggre-
gated dependency ratios. They therefore test the
age-structure hypothesis in its weak form. The
inclusion of population and population density
means that they are also taking account of the
possibilities of increasing returns or dilution of
natural capital.
Kelley and Schmidt’s findings, like those of Bloom
and Sachs and Bloom and Williamson, fit their model
well if judged by the correspondence between the
signs of estimated coefficients and theoretical ex-
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pectation (Kelley and Schmidt 2005, Table 1). There
is support for the hypothesis that g1 g2 1 once the
demographic X variables are included in the model.
Of these four variables, only the young-age depen-
dency ratio is significant, but its estimated effects are
very large compared to the arithmetic dividends
reported in Table 3. Those dividends were calculated
against a benchmark of unchanged age structure. On
the same basis, the projected decline in the youth
dependency ratio in SSA from 88 in 1985 to 64 in
2025 would, using the parameter estimate given in
Kelley and Schmidt (2007, Table 3.1), raise average
growth over the years 1985
2025 by 0.59 per cent
p.a., nearly double the arithmetic dividend. The
corresponding figure for Asia 1965
2005 is 1.14 per
cent p.a., nearly 3 times the arithmetic dividend.
It is worth noting some contrasts between the
Bloom and Sachs and Kelley and Schmidt ap-
proaches. While it is true that some of the variation
across time in the data is exploited by Kelley and
Schmidt, they do include dummy variables for each
time period other than the first, and, as the authors
acknowledge, these dummies swallow up most of the
aggregate variation in growth from decade to decade
(Kelley and Schmidt 2005, p. 294 and Table 2). As
regards variation across space, Kelley and Schmidt
include regional dummy variables and, given the
limited range of their included regressors, are not
able to eliminate a strong ‘Africa effect’: African
growth, ceteris paribus, is estimated to be between
0.7 per cent and 1.3 per cent p.a. slower than growth
in Asia, Europe, and Latin America (Kelley and
Schmidt 2005, Table 1, col. 5).
The use of the instrumental-variables method in
the estimation of the model is designed to circum-
vent endogeneity issues of the kind discussed earlier.
Space precludes extensive discussion (for an intro-
duction, see Angrist and Krueger 2001), but the
essential requirement is that one can identify an
‘instrument’ Z for an endogenous regressor X, such
that Z is (i) highly correlated with X, and (ii)
independent of the error term o. The normal
practice, followed by Kelley and Schmidt, is to use
lagged Xs as instruments, but this is controversial,
since it has to assume that*while the included
causal variables, the Xs, are serially correlated, as
may be expected with slow-moving X variables*the
omitted causal variables, whose aggregate influence
comprise o, are not (Weil 2007, p. 1271). It is difficult
to see how this assumption could ever be convin-
cingly defended, since, whatever properties lead
some variables to be included as regressors and
others to be excluded, that of being serially corre-
lated or not can hardly be one of them. Further, the
assumption cannot be tested, in view of the small
number of time periods*typically four or five.
The argument for age-structure effects that are
more than arithmetical rests in part on the hypoth-
esis that a fall in the dependency ratio raises savings.
What is the evidence for this? For East Asia, there is
certainly a strong negative association between
young-age dependency and aggregate savings as a
share of income. Between the mid-1960s and the
early 1990s, young-age dependency rates in some
East Asian countries fell from about 40 per cent to
25 per cent or less, while the savings ratio rose from
about 20 per cent to about 35 per cent.
Empirical work to test whether this association
can be interpreted as a causal consequence of life-
cycle savings has two strands. The first consists of
panel studies on country-level data using the method
described above. Thus Higgins and Williamson
(1997), on the basis of a panel of annual observations
over 40 years on 16 Asian countries, claim that
nearly all (about 13 percentage points) of the rise in
the savings rate can be attributed to the life-cycle
mechanism via reduced dependency burdens. How-
ever, it must be questionable whether year-on-year
variations in noisy age structure and savings rates
can be informative, especially given what are likely
to be complex dynamics. In a reconsideration of this
work Schultz (2004) suggests an effect that is only
one-tenth as great and not statistically significant.
A second strand of research (Deaton and Paxson
1997, 2000; Lee et al. 2000) uses household data to
identify age and cohort effects on savings, using
simulation methods to estimate the effects of demo-
graphic change on aggregate savings. This research is
based on the life-cycle model of savings, according to
which individuals follow a consistent pattern of
smoothing consumption through the life span, per-
iods of dissaving early and late in life being balanced
by a hump of saving in between. Demographic
change affects the aggregate savings rate in this

model via changes in age structure. In particular,
fertility decline should raise the savings rate by
reducing the proportion of young dissavers in the
population. Deaton and Paxson (2000), using Tai-
wanese data for the period 1976
95, test the life-
cycle hypothesis rather than imposing it, and their
critical finding is that the hypothesis in its simplest
form fails, a result confirmed in their work on other
countries (Deaton and Paxson 1997). Successive
cohorts of Taiwanese individuals at every age are
found to save higher fractions of their permanent
incomes, a result which the life-cycle model would
have to attribute to a trend of strengthening of the
bequest motive. The household saving rate in Taiwan
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rose from about 10 per cent in 1970 to about 30 per
cent in 1990, but the authors can attribute, at most,
only one-fifth of this rise to the effect of the
demographic transition (Deaton and Paxson 2000,
p. 167).
Summing up, what does the cross-country econo-
metric literature claim about the importance in
practice of the four causal channels identified ear-
lier? Population density is included in some of the
research, acting as an imperfect proxy for the
dilution of natural capital or increasing returns or
both, but does not provide strong evidence for either
causal channel, although the finding by Bloom and
Sachs that coastal density raises growth per head
provides some weak support for increasing returns.
The strongest claim in the literature relates to the
relative importance of the dilution of reproducible
capital and benefits from improved age structure,
coming out in favour of the latter and arguing that
greater-than-arithmetical age-structure effects arise,
in particular, because reduced youth dependency
raises savings. However, neither conclusion is firmly
established. Both rest on a controversial macro-
econometric method, and investigations of the sav-
ings channel using microeconomic data suggest for
East Asia that most of its rise in savings cannot be
attributed to the demographic transition.
Capital stocks, savings, and sustainability
One response to doubts over the use of aggregate
econometric methods to identify links from demo-
graphy to development has been to use relationships
estimated using household data as inputs to macro-
economic simulation models, with parameters
mostly obtained by calibration rather than estima-
tion. For example, Young (2005) uses micro-level
estimates of the effects of HIV infection on fertility
as an input to a long-run macro simulation model of
Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 25
the effects of HIV on development in South Africa.
Such models involve strong simplifying assumptions
and have attracted powerful critiques (e.g., Bell et al.
2006, who emphasize adverse effects of HIV on
human capital accumulation via the diversion of
public resources from education towards care of the
sick, and the effects of both death of a parent and
reduced child life expectancy on private incentives
to educate children).
Going further away from estimation than this is
recent work (World Bank 2006) that eschews the
strong assumptions required for cross-country
econometric analysis in favour of strong theoretical
assumptions and country-by-country calculation.
The primary aim of this work is to investigate at
country level whether savings are consistent with
sustainability, defined as non-decreasing wealth per
head. It is assumed that output per head is a function
of wealth per head, with no exogenous technical
change. Slower population growth, ceteris paribus,
lowers the savings share consistent with sustainabil-
ity and therefore raises sustainable consumption per
head*a demographic dividend defined slightly dif-
ferently from that found in the age-structure litera-
ture. For a given deceleration of population growth
over, say, a 40-year interval, we can represent the
gain in consumption per head in the form of an
annual growth rate, making it broadly (but not
exactly) commensurate with the growth in output
per head identified in the age-structure approach
and shown in Table 3.
Before estimating such ‘reduced-dilution’ divi-
dends, we consider the World Bank’s estimates of
dilution itself. These are interesting in themselves
and offer an important contrast between SSA and
Asia. The algebra is as follows. With W denoting
wealth and other notation as before (Y now stands
for income rather than GDP), we can write the
growth rate of W/N as
gðW=NÞ gðWÞ  gðNÞ DW=W  gðNÞ (12)
But the change in wealth, DW, is equal to adjusted
net savings, that is, the product of the net savings
rate and income, with an adjustment, explained
below. To keep W/N constant, the required savings
rate, denoted sR, can therefore be obtained by
setting equation (12) equal to zero, substituting
DW sRY, and rearranging:
sR ¼ ðW=YÞgðNÞ (13)
Then the ‘savings gap’ is defined as the gap between
this ‘required’ savings rate (to keep consumption per
person just sustainable, that is, without depleting
 26 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton

capital per person) and the adjusted net savings rate.
Table 4 shows estimated savings gaps for the 11 out
of the 16 most populous countries in SSA for which
the data are available. What is striking is how large
these gaps are*over 10 per cent of income for all
but South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana*in spite of the
fact that gross savings rates in most of these
countries already exceed 10 per cent.
To grasp these results, note two features of the
World Bank’s method. The first is the measurement of
national wealth, which comprises ‘tangible wealth’
and ‘intangible wealth’ (for details on ‘intangible
wealth’, see World Bank 2006, p. XIV). What matters
here is ‘tangible wealth’, W, defined to include not
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from net saving conventionally defined (i.e., gross
saving minus the depreciation of reproducible capi-
tal) by adding education expenditure and deducting
the consumption of natural capital, comprising
petroleum resources, mineral resources, and forest
resources (excluding soil degradation and the deple-
tion of fish stocks). For some SSA countries the
consumption of natural capital is important, as
indicated by the difference between columns 1 and
2 in Table 4: among our eleven countries, oil
depletion has a very large impact for Nigeria, and
a significant one for Cameroon, while net deforesta-
tion looms large for Ethiopia.
The idea behind these calculations is that repro-

only reproducible capital but also land and natural
resources, defined as arable land, pasture, timber and
non-timber forest resources, protected areas, and
subsoil resources (fish stocks and subsoil water are
excluded). Reproducible capital averages only 29 per
cent of tangible wealth in the eleven large SSA
countries considered, so the dilution of wealth result-
ing from population growth is, on average, over 3
times as great as would be the case if only reproducible
capital were included. As equation (13) shows, a high
value of W/Y (i.e., low capital productivity) raises the
required savings rate: inclusion of natural capital in
the analysis tends to raise W/Y in SSA relative to Asia,
where natural capital is generally a lower fraction of
wealth, and so contributes to the relatively high
required savings rates for SSA that are shown in
Table 4.
The second feature of the World Bank’s method is
the definition of adjusted net saving. This is obtained
ducible capital can substitute for natural capital ($
for $ at the margin), for example, enough extra
roads, factories, or irrigation can make up for
excessive depletion of mineral resources or the
crowding of land resources that population growth
entails. However, population growth rates of 2 per
cent per year or more require very high savings rates
if wealth per capita is not to fall. Table 4 shows that
in Burkina Faso, where depletion of exhaustible
resources is not a significant factor and where
adjusted saving is over 6 per cent of national income,
the required savings share is 27.5 per cent and so
there is a savings gap of 21 per cent. Since raising the
savings share by an amount of this order is hard to
contemplate, the implication might appear to be that
a marked fall in the rate of population growth is a
sine qua non of a transition to sustainability. This
argument cannot be transplanted without caveats to
countries, such as Nigeria, where the counterpart of

Table 4 Savings gaps in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, 2000

Net saving Adjusted net Reproducible Tangible Natural Required net Savings
% of saving % of capital share of wealth to increase, % saving % of gap % of
income income tangible wealth income ratio 2000
05 income income

Burkina Faso 4.0 6.3 0.4 8.87 3.1 27.5 21.2

Cameroon 5.7 1.3 0.27 11.83 2.33 27.6 28.9
Côte d’Ivoire 0.7 0.9 0.24 6.59 2.52 16.6 17.5
Ethiopia 4.5 4.0 0.18 9.63 2.71 26.1 30.1
Ghana 8.4 6.5 0.34 7.93 2.29 18.2 11.7
Kenya 5.7 11.6 0.39 6.52 2.59 16.9 5.3
Madagascar 1.7 3.5 0.19 8.47 2.85 24.1 20.6
Malawi 3.8 0.9 0.41 8.19 2.91 23.8 24.7
Mozambique 3.8 7.6 0.31 7.88 2.66 21.0 13.4
Nigeria 17.3 32.5 0.14 15.85 2.44 38.7 71.2
South Africa 2.4 8.7 0.68 3.76 1.43 5.4 3.3
China 29.8 28.0 0.55 6.14 0.74 4.5 23.4
India 14.6 14.1 0.45 6.47 1.65 10.7 3.4
Indonesia 15.4 3.1 0.42 9.08 1.41 12.8 9.7
Thailand 15.9 17.6 0.32 5.81 0.68 4.0 13.7

Source: World Bank (2006), UN (2009a).

 Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 27

a high savings gap is rapid oil depletion. To the
extent that oil or other mineral rents are accruing to
foreigners or national elites, it may be that the gap
between consumption and sustainable consumption
for the mass of the population is much smaller than
the calculation would indicate. Working the other
way, some countries have high annual rates of
depletion of soil nutrients (and fish stocks), which
are probably due in part to population increase, but
not accounted for here (Haileselassie et al. 2005;
Henao and Baanante 2006).
What are the results of similar calculations for
Asian countries? If it could be shown that Asia in
1965 or 1985 had similar savings gaps to SSA in 2000,
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happened in Asia in the 1950s and 1960s (Lipton
1977, chap. 10).
How robust are these results? Two reservations
may be noted, pulling in opposite directions. First,
technological advance*whether exogenous or via
the closing of an international technology gap*is
excluded. Otherwise, constant wealth per head
would allow rising, not constant, consumption per
head, undermining the sustainability calculations
given here (Weitzman and Löfgren 1997). Second,
natural and reproducible capital are assumed per-
fectly substitutable. If they are not, then $ for $
substitution of natural capital with reproducible
capital will fail to sustain output and, as a result,

then the credibility of this exercise would be wea-
kened. Estimates of pre-2000 wealth levels are not
available, so that equation (13) cannot be applied
historically, but for 2000, gaps can be calculated
for nine populous Asian countries (China, India,
Indonesia (Table 4), Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Philip-
pines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand). In all of these
countries with the exception of Indonesia (an oil
producer to which arguments parallel to those for
Nigeria apply) the gaps are negative: net savings
rates are high and easily sufficient to outweigh
dilution. Estimated net savings rates over the period
1970
2000 averaged about 20 per cent for East Asia
and the Pacific, little more than zero for SSA (World
Bank 2006, Figure 3.3, p. 41). This gap may be
exaggerated owing to the under-recording of non-
monetized savings in SSA, as appears to have
the numbers in Table 4 will underestimate savings
gaps (compare Weil and Wilde 2009).
We now turn to the effects of the fall in natural
increase during Phase 2. For SSA, we take the
projected change in annual natural increase between
a reference period representing the end of Phase 1,
taken as 1970
85 and the first 40 years of Phase 2,
taken as 1985
2025. For comparisons with Asia, the
two periods chosen are 1950
65 and 1965
2005. Falls
in natural increase between the two periods (col-
umns 2 and 3 of Table 5) imply from equation (13)
that required savings rates fall, raising sustainable
consumption per head by given amounts (col. 5).
These rises are quite substantial, 5.8 per cent for
Ghana and 6.8 per cent for Kenya, for example, but
when they are converted to rates of increase over 40
years, so as to make them roughly comparable with

Table 5 Reduced dilution dividends: selected countries of sub-Saharan Africa (1970
85 to 1985
2025) and Asia (1950
65
to 1965
2005)

Natural Tangible
increase: SSA Natural increase: wealth: Change in sustainable Change in sustainable
1970
85 Asia SSA 1985
2025 multiple of consumption/head: share consumption/head:
1950
65 Asia 1965
2005 income of national income annual change, per cent

Burkina Faso 2.73 3.03 8.87 2.7 0.07

Cameroon 2.84 2.31 11.83 6.2 0.15
Côte d’Ivoire 3.54 2.50 6.59 6.8 0.17
Ethiopia 2.63 2.63 9.63 0.0 0.00
Ghana 3.01 2.28 7.93 5.8 0.14
Kenya 3.72 2.68 6.52 6.8 0.16
Madagascar 2.72 2.69 8.47 0.2 0.01
Malawi 3.31 2.92 8.19 3.2 0.08
Mozambique 2.45 2.25 7.88 1.5 0.04
Nigeria 2.71 2.29 15.85 6.8 0.16
South Africa 2.42 1.16 3.76 4.7 0.12
China 1.83 1.52 6.14 1.9 0.05
India 1.93 2.07 6.47 0.9 0.02
Indonesia 1.99 1.91 9.08 0.8 0.02
Thailand 2.97 1.70 5.81 7.4 0.18

Source: World Bank (2006), UN (2009a).

 28 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton
the age-structure dividends in Table 3, much smaller
numbers result.
Thus the message of Table 5 is simple. Whether or
not natural increase is acting as a drag on SSA
development, as the World Bank research suggests,
changes in it seem in most cases to have a small
projected effect on sustainable consumption per
head. The projected SSA age-structure dividends
over the period 1985
2025 in Table 3 range from
0.18 per cent p.a. to 0.54 per cent p.a., while those
from reducing the dilution of capital in Table 5 range
from minus 0.07 per cent p.a. to plus 0.17 per cent
p.a. (negative numbers indicate rises in natural
increase in countries that remain in Phase 1 for
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much of the period). Estimates for Asian countries*
inaccurate to the extent that they are based on
tangible wealth
income ratios for 2000*are simi-
larly small in comparison with the estimated (arith-
metic) age-structure dividends. The small numbers
in Table 5 are, of course, an artefact of the chosen
counterfactual. If fertility were to decline so much
faster than shown in UN middle projections that
Phase 2 ended with the rate of natural increase equal
or close to zero, then dividends 5 or 6 times larger
would, on average, be the result.
5. Conclusions
We first reviewed the demographic transition in
SSA. In Phase 1, compared with Asia, dependency
and natural increase peaked some 20 years later in
SSA*and higher, by about 14 points and 0.6 per
cent, respectively. UN middle projections suggest
that in Phase 2 both will fall more slowly in SSA
than they did in Asia, and these projections depend
on accelerated falls in African total fertility. This is
driven mainly by earlier falls in young-age mortality,
but this continues to fall relatively slowly in SSA.
Since that is not taken into account in UN projec-
tions, these probably overstate future TFR declines.
Yet there is sufficient national diversity to suggest
possible policy-driven acceleration of falls in young-
age mortality, though the immediate effect would be
to raise both dependency and natural increase. Even
in countries where total fertility has fallen overall, it
has remained stubbornly high in some regions, and
in rural areas. Despite urbanization, for some time
the demographics of such areas will increasingly
dominate national outcomes. This strengthens the
case for policy to cut young-age mortality, alongside
fertility, in rural areas.
We then turned to the economic consequences of
the demographic transition, specifying the channels
through which demographic change might have
macro-economic consequences. Phase 2 of the
transition entails falls in both dependency and
natural increase, each of which may deliver a
demographic dividend. In each case, accounting
can be used to calculate an ‘arithmetic’ dividend
which, under strong assumptions specific to that
case, constitutes the total dividend. For dependency
falls, the arithmetic dividend for SSA over the
period 1985
2025, defined in terms of the growth
of GDP per person, is 0.32 per cent per year. For
falls in natural increase, data gaps prevent us from
calculating a figure for SSA as a whole, but for
eleven of its populous countries the median arith-
metic dividend*here defined in terms of growth of
sustainable consumption per person*is 0.12 per
cent per year.
An influential body of econometric work has
supported an ‘age-structure hypothesis’ that all of
the macro-economic effects of the transition are
mediated through age-structure change*that natur-
al increase as such is irrelevant. In its strong form,
the hypothesis claims that the working-age share
(equivalently, the dependency ratio) is a sufficient
statistic for the age structure; the econometrics then
suggests a growth dividend 1.5
3.5 times greater
than the arithmetic dividend. In its weak form, the
hypothesis allows for differential effects from young-
age and old-age dependency, and strong effects from
young-age dependency, perhaps via savings beha-
viour, are found. Reservations about these results
arise, however, both for technical reasons and
because of doubts about whether findings that
depend a good deal on Asian experience can be
projected onto SSA’s future.
On the latter point, the achievement of even the
arithmetic age-structure dividend requires that de-
mographic transition does not reduce labour pro-
ductivity, in spite of a continuing rise in the labour
force. That this was achieved in Phase 2 in much of
Asia was due to the sharp rise in the savings rate,
only about a fifth of which can be convincingly
attributed to dependency falls, to improved educa-
tion of the workforce, and to rapid, labour-intensive
agrotechnical progress on smallholdings, especially

in the period 1965
85. Such achievements have
proved more elusive in Africa.
Falling natural increase delivers a demographic
dividend in terms of sustainable consumption, by
reducing the proportion of income that has to be
saved to prevent capital per person from falling.
Borrowing data and methods from the World Bank,
we have shown that falls in natural increase during
Phase 2 yield rather small dividends of this form. Far
more significant, and in sharp contrast to Asia, is the
alarming implication that continuing high levels of
natural increase, in combination with low savings
rates and low capital productivity, render current
consumption per person in most of SSA unsustain-
Downloaded by [Memorial University of Newfoundland] at 05:58 27 November 2014
able. Matters are worse if man-made capital cannot
readily be substituted for natural capital, or if an
environmental resource is progressively degraded
(perhaps below a critical threshold) because it is
used by more and more people.
One escape from such predicaments could be via
inflows of savings from abroad, attracted by the high
marginal returns to capital that one might expect to
be available in capital-scarce economies. But recent
work that takes proper account of natural capital
suggests that the marginal product of reproducible
capital is not high in SSA, which may help to account
both for low private capital inflows and low domestic
savings rates (Caselli and Feyrer 2007). If this is
correct, then the prospects for stemming capital
dilution in SSA in the coming decades will depend
on technological advances raising the marginal
product of capital, unless greater falls in natural
increase than currently projected can be achieved.
Other things equal, it will be advances in the least
capital-intensive sectors (e.g., agriculture) where the
greatest potential benefits are likely to lie, simply
because a given investment will be complemented
with more extra labour in such sectors. Such
advances are not impossible: capital pessimism was
also a feature of debates on Asian economic devel-
opment in the 1950s and 1960s (e.g., Higgins 1959),
and a series of key technological advances in
agriculture (the Green Revolution) helped to pre-
vent its predictions from being realized.
Finally, neither arithmetic nor econometrics
determines the future of demographic variables any-
where, nor the resulting economic gains in Phase 2.
We have hinted at relevant policy choices, but a
general issue arises. Might mutual causation (e.g.,
between reduction in fertility and in mortality), and
Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa 29
interaction among determinants of labour-productivity,
suggest an efficient route to higher demographic
dividend: could complementary policies cut young-age
mortality, raise availability of contraception, improve
the education and earning prospects of girls, and
absorb extra workers productively?
Notes
1 Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton are Senior
Lecturer and Research Professor in the Department of
Economics at the University of Sussex. Eastwood is
corresponding author: email r.k.eastwood@sussex.ac.uk
2 The authors thank three reviewers, Guenther Fink, and
Bruno Schoumaker for helpful comments on an earlier
draft and Kenneth Hill for sending us the IDEC Life
Tables.
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 APPENDIX
Table A1 Total fertility rate and crude birth rate in countries of sub-Saharan Africa and regions of Asia, selected years

TFR50
55 TFR65
70 TFR85
90 TFR00
05 TFR05
10 TFR25
30 CBR50
55 CBR65
70 CBR85
90 CBR00
05 CBR05
10 CBR25
30

SSA 6.57 6.70 6.42 5.41 5.08 3.40 47.8 47.3 45.0 40.2 38.6 28.2
E SSA 7.03 7.10 6.67 5.60 5.30 3.47 49.7 48.6 46.0 41.0 39.6 28.7
Downloaded by [Memorial University of Newfoundland] at 05:58 27 November 2014

Ethiopia 7.17 6.87 7.06 5.87 5.38 3.25 49.4 47.7 48.0 40.6 38.6 27.0
Kenya 7.48 8.11 6.54 5.00 4.96 3.22 51.2 50.6 45.1 38.8 39.0 27.3
Madagascar 7.30 7.30 6.30 5.28 4.78 3.06 49.0 47.9 45.0 39.3 36.2 26.1
Malawi 6.78 7.20 7.16 6.03 5.59 3.64 52.3 55.8 50.9 43.7 40.5 30.6
Mozambique 6.60 6.60 6.33 5.52 5.11 3.26 49.3 48.0 43.6 43.5 39.5 28.5
Sudan 6.65 6.60 6.08 4.82 4.23 2.75 46.4 46.2 41.8 34.5 31.6 22.9
Tanzania 6.74 6.79 6.36 5.66 5.58 3.80 49.0 48.7 44.9 41.8 41.6 30.8
Uganda 6.90 7.12 7.10 6.70 6.38 4.22 51.3 49.0 49.4 47.4 46.3 34.3
M SSA 6.03 6.31 6.72 6.22 5.67 3.68 46.8 47.1 48.2 45.5 42.7 31.1
Angola 7.00 7.40 7.20 6.63 5.79 3.83 54.0 53.2 52.8 47.6 42.9 32.1
Cameroon 5.68 6.10 6.10 4.92 4.67 3.02 43.4 44.6 42.9 37.8 37.1 26.0
DRC 5.98 6.15 6.98 6.70 6.07 3.81 47.2 47.5 50.2 48.3 45.1 32.3
S SSA 6.22 5.77 4.16 2.90 2.64 2.15 43.4 38.9 32.2 24.9 22.8 18.3
South Africa 6.50 5.70 4.00 2.80 2.55 2.10 43.3 38.2 31.1 24.2 22.1 17.8
W SSA 6.42 6.71 6.68 5.59 5.27 3.47 47.4 48.0 46.2 41.2 40.0 28.5
Burkina Faso 6.10 6.56 6.94 6.14 5.94 4.05 47.2 47.5 48.0 45.0 47.8 32.7

Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa

Côte d’Ivoire 6.77 7.83 6.61 5.05 4.65 3.01 51.2 53.0 42.8 37.1 35.1 25.5
Ghana 6.43 6.95 5.88 4.54 4.31 3.10 44.6 47.5 40.4 33.7 32.5 24.5
Nigeria 6.55 6.55 6.76 5.67 5.32 3.27 48.0 47.0 46.9 41.8 40.1 27.2
China 6.11 5.94 2.63 1.77 1.77 1.85 43.8 36.9 23.7 14.0 13.5 10.6
India 5.91 5.64 4.15 3.11 2.76 1.96 43.4 38.8 32.5 25.4 23.0 15.5
Indonesia 5.49 5.57 3.40 2.38 2.19 1.85 42.7 42.1 27.4 20.7 18.8 13.7
Thailand 6.35 5.99 2.30 1.81 1.81 1.85 43.6 39.6 20.8 15.3 14.6 12.2
Asia 5.73 5.46 3.47 2.50 2.35 2.01 42.3 37.7 28.4 20.3 19.0 14.2
E Asia 5.42 5.01 2.52 1.71 1.72 1.81 40.7 34.6 22.2 13.4 13.0 10.2
SC Asia 6.04 5.86 4.48 3.17 2.82 2.10 43.3 40.0 34.3 26.0 23.7 16.6
SE Asia 5.98 6.03 3.63 2.48 2.32 2.02 44.1 41.3 29.2 21.0 19.5 14.6
W Asia 6.33 5.95 4.46 3.18 2.95 2.29 47.2 40.7 32.6 25.2 23.9 17.5

Source: UN (2009a).

33
 34
Table A2 Crude death rate, infant mortality rate, HIV prevalence, countries of sub-Saharan Africa and regions of Asia, selected years

Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton

CDR50
55 CDR65
70 CDR85
90 CDR00
05 CDR05
10 CDR25
30 HIV15
49 IMR50
55 IMR65
70 IMR85
90 IMR00
05 IMR05
10 IMR25
30

SSA 26.3 21.3 16.4 14.9 13.9 9.7 5.0 174.3 142.8 112.0 94.8 88.6 61.1
Downloaded by [Memorial University of Newfoundland] at 05:58 27 November 2014

E SSA 26.8 20.4 16.1 14.3 12.7 8.5 178.0 137.4 108.7 85.3 76.3 49.0
Ethiopia 29.9 21.8 19.1 13.5 12.0 8.2 2.1 199.3 147.9 125.8 88 79.1 50.2
Kenya 23.6 16.5 10.0 12.9 11.7 8.5 7.8 147.1 104.4 67.2 70.5 63.9 43.8
Madagascar 27.5 22.1 16.4 10.8 9.3 6.5 0.1 180.9 143.2 109.9 74.7 65.2 40.2
Malawi 30.9 25.5 18.6 14.6 12.4 8.4 11.9 212.0 195.0 142.4 96.5 83.7 57.0
Mozambique 32.8 25.6 21.0 16.9 16.1 11.8 12.5 220.2 172.1 143.0 102.9 90.1 53.4
Sudan 22.8 19.2 14.4 11 10.3 8.0 1.4 152.0 129.5 99.1 73.3 69.1 43.5
Tanzania 22.4 18.9 14.7 13.3 11.5 7.7 6.2 153.3 128.1 99.8 74 64.8 38.5
Uganda 24.5 17.4 16.1 15.2 12.9 7.8 5.4 160.5 116.5 103.6 82.3 74.0 50.5
M SSA 27.4 22.2 17.5 17.1 16.4 11.5 182.1 149.6 116.4 112.7 112.2 82.6
Angola 35.9 28.7 23.2 19.6 17.1 11.5 2.1 230.5 186.0 150.5 132.9 117.5 79.8
Cameroon 24.9 20.1 13.0 14.5 14.3 10.5 5.1 169.5 133.0 83.4 89.4 86.9 61.2
DRC 25.4 21.2 18.1 17.4 17.2 11.9 1.3 166.5 143.3 117.8 112 116.8 86.5
S SSA 20.5 14.9 8.8 13.5 14.8 14.1 104.3 88.6 55.0 60.3 49.4 26.9
South Africa 20.3 14.7 8.7 9.9 15.1 14.4 18.1 96.1 83.6 52.3 59.1 49.1 26.7
W SSA 27.2 23.7 18.3 15.4 14.4 9.9 185.3 158.1 124.6 103.5 97.5 69.5
Burkina Faso 29.0 23.7 18.1 14 13.1 8.7 1.6 219.9 162.3 111.7 86.8 80.1 64.7
Côte d’Ivoire 26.6 20.9 11.4 11.9 10.9 7.6 3.9 192.1 155.3 102.9 86.8 86.8 61.2
Ghana 20.1 17.4 11.9 10.8 11.2 8.6 1.9 139.9 117.1 83.3 70.4 73.4 48.0
Nigeria 27.7 24.2 20.0 17.4 16.5 11.7 3.1 185.7 162.1 132.3 113.8 109.4 77.7
China 25.1 10.9 7.5 6.6 7.0 9.1 0.1 195.0 80.8 31.4 25.6 22.9 14.9
India 25.5 17.3 11.1 8.9 8.5 8.0 0.3 163.7 129.9 87.8 61.8 54.6 38.3
Indonesia 26.1 18.6 9.2 6.6 6.3 7.0 0.2 201.2 144.1 69.8 34.2 26.6 13.1
Thailand 14.9 10.8 5.9 8.5 8.9 10.2 1.4 94.2 69.9 26.0 9.6 6.8 5.6
Asia 23.5 13.9 9.0 7.4 7.4 8.0 175.0 107.0 64.0 47 41.5 28.1
E Asia 22.6 10.4 7.3 6.8 7.2 9.4 0.1 181.7 76.7 29.7 24.2 21.8 14.5
SC Asia 24.9 17.4 11.1 8.6 8.1 7.6 0.3 168.2 133.1 89.6 63.5 56.3 39.8
SE Asia 23.3 16.1 8.6 6.7 6.5 7.0 0.3 165.7 117.3 60.7 33.5 28.3 15.4
W Asia 22.0 13.8 7.9 5.5 5.5 5.4 n/a 192.2 129.5 59.8 34 29.9 17.1

Source: UN (2009a).
 Table A3 Rate of natural increase and dependency ratio, countries of sub-Saharan Africa and regions of Asia, selected years

NGR 1950
55 NGR 1965
70 NGR 1985
90 NGR 2000
05 NGR 2005
10 NGR 2025
30 DpR 1950 DpR 1965 DpR 1985 DpR 2000 DpR 2005 DpR 2025

SSA 2.15 2.60 2.86 2.53 2.47 1.85 82 88 93 89 86 71

E SSA 2.29 2.82 2.99 2.67 2.69 2.02 85 92 96 93 90 74
Ethiopia 1.95 2.59 2.89 2.71 2.66 1.88 89 85 90 95 92 70
Downloaded by [Memorial University of Newfoundland] at 05:58 27 November 2014

Kenya 2.76 3.41 3.51 2.59 2.73 1.88 77 108 111 89 83 71

Madagascar 2.15 2.58 2.86 2.85 2.69 1.96 70 92 93 93 90 67
Malawi 2.14 3.03 3.23 2.91 2.81 2.22 95 93 101 96 99 79
Mozambique 1.65 2.24 2.26 2.66 2.34 1.67 80 84 91 88 90 73
Sudan 2.36 2.7 2.74 2.35 2.13 1.49 89 88 90 83 79 58
Tanzania 2.66 2.98 3.02 2.85 3.01 2.31 93 93 96 91 91 82
Uganda 2.68 3.16 3.33 3.22 3.34 2.65 85 96 101 109 108 88
M SSA 1.94 2.49 3.07 2.84 2.63 1.96 81 86 95 97 95 75
Angola 1.81 2.45 2.96 2.8 2.58 2.06 79 92 98 98 95 76
Cameroon 1.85 2.45 2.99 2.33 2.28 1.55 75 82 95 87 83 66
DRC 2.18 2.63 3.21 3.09 2.79 2.04 89 88 96 103 101 78
S SSA 2.29 2.40 2.34 1.14 0.80 0.42 73 85 79 62 58 54
South Africa 2.3 2.35 2.24 1.43 0.7 0.34 72 83 77 59 56 53
W SSA 2.02 2.43 2.79 2.58 2.56 1.86 81 85 94 88 86 70
Burkina Faso 1.82 2.38 2.99 3.1 3.47 2.4 74 80 99 96 92 79
Côte d’Ivoire 2.46 3.21 3.14 2.52 2.42 1.79 83 84 92 81 82 66

Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa

Ghana 2.45 3.01 2.85 2.29 2.13 1.59 90 89 92 81 76 62
Nigeria 2.03 2.28 2.69 2.44 2.36 1.55 80 86 94 88 86 67
China 1.87 2.6 1.62 0.74 0.65 0.15 61 80 55 48 42 46
India 1.79 2.15 2.14 1.65 1.45 0.75 68 81 73 65 60 47
Indonesia 1.66 2.35 1.82 1.41 1.25 0.67 75 81 72 54 51 43
Thailand 2.87 2.88 1.49 0.68 0.57 0.2 82 92 61 46 43 48
Asia 1.88 2.38 1.94 1.29 1.16 0.62 67 80 66 57 53 48
E Asia 1.81 2.42 1.49 0.66 0.58 0.08 63 75 53 48 43 47
SC Asia 1.84 2.26 2.32 1.74 1.56 0.9 69 82 77 67 61 49
SE Asia 2.08 2.52 2.06 1.43 1.3 0.76 73 87 74 58 53 46
W Asia 2.52 2.69 2.47 1.97 1.84 1.21 74 88 80 67 61 50

Source: UN (2009a).

35