Althouse: "Because of collapsing fertility elsewhere, Africa will make up an increasing share of the world’s population."

January 29, 2025

"Because of collapsing fertility elsewhere, Africa will make up an increasing share of the world’s population."

"Africa accounted for less than 10 percent of the world’s population until the early 1970s, but a demographic forecast in The Lancet suggests that by 2100, 54 percent of the world’s babies will be born in sub-Saharan Africa. Include North Africa, and the share is even higher. If that forecast is right (and always be skeptical of long-term demographic forecasts), at some point in the 22nd century a majority of the world’s population will be African.... In an aging and perhaps enfeebled world, Africa will also be a continent of youth — arguably making it comparatively vigorous and more of a hotbed for entrepreneurship and for music and popular culture...."

Writes Nicholas Kristof, in "In an Aging World, a Youthful Africa Steps Up" (NYT).

46 comments:

cubanbob said...: When has Kristoff been right about anything? As for Africa, he has high hopes against all odds. There is a reason why there is mass migration from Africa.; 1/29/25, 4:39 PM
Rocco said...: “The Lancet suggests that by 2100, 54 percent of the world’s babies will be born in sub-Saharan Africa.”

There are individual countries in Africa - Nigeria and Ethiopia for example - where the number of babies born in a year exceeds the total number of babies born in a year for the entire continent of Europe.; 1/29/25, 4:43 PM
mccullough said...: The famine and war and disease will wipe out most of them. The White Man’s Burden is over; 1/29/25, 4:46 PM
mccullough said...: He’s a rube. They have high fertility rate because the rest of the world takes care of them; 1/29/25, 4:47 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: I don't know if people think this is the win for Africa they think it is, as this will most definitely not help "the latter aren’t performing at their genetic peak, and that developmental interventions - again, nutrition, health care, and education - are likely to work."; 1/29/25, 4:51 PM
Leland said...: Did they factor in a life expectancy about 10 to 20% lower than other continents? It should improve over time, but so will other countries. US birth rates were much higher when mortality rates were higher, because you needed enough kids to make sure some would survive.; 1/29/25, 4:56 PM
n.n said...: UnPlanned Parenthood, functional religions, and inclusive ideologies. The Musk family, for one.; 1/29/25, 4:57 PM
rhhardin said...: You'd think rabbits would take over too, but there's the Lotka-Volterra equation.; 1/29/25, 4:57 PM
Coast-bound said...: Africa not only has a rapidly growing population but potential for greater economic development than any other region. By assisting that development, the US would benefit from access to extraordinary natural resources and from growing consumer markets. The Chinese and Russia have been very successful in pursuing this strategy while the US is less and less a factor. Long term economic growth will also reduce the size of African families as has been the case in more mature economies.; 1/29/25, 4:59 PM
n.n said...: Ending DEI is forward-looking. Mitigating progressive prices forced by redistributive change schemes is, too.; 1/29/25, 4:59 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: The famous Western Civilization professor at UCLA, Eugene Weber, once said the following about the aid given to Africa, that it "condemns as it saves." Population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is directly linked to aid from outside Africa, both nutritional, medical, and technological. Take those things away and that population growth becomes exceedingly inorganic.; 1/29/25, 5:00 PM
Spiros said...: I don't think this is a good thing at all. China got it's birthrate under control and its living standards dramatically improved. Africa needs a one child policy.; 1/29/25, 5:07 PM
Mikey NTH said...: That's what I came to write: when was the last time Kristoff has been correct about anything?; 1/29/25, 5:08 PM
Yancey Ward said...: The problem for Africa in the 22nd century is that it will still be filled with Africans. If all the Europeans and Asians in Africa left today, 10 years from now the population of Africa would fall by 1/2.; 1/29/25, 5:09 PM
Dude1394 said...: Man that is some kind of bull****.; 1/29/25, 5:11 PM
The Godfather said...: Will large parts of Africa adopt free-market economies? If they do, then their booming populations will mean booming incomes and economic growth and trade with the the rest of the world. If they continue to cling to post-colonial socialistic economies and government, then they will continue to require aid from the fading states of the West (whether they can get it or not will be $64 trillion dollar question).; 1/29/25, 5:12 PM
cubanbob said...: Coast-bound, look at South Africa. That is the future of most of Africa. Even if you take whites out of the equation, just look at Nigeria. Between tribalism, corruption, religious conflict and general lack of work ethics, most of Africa will be mired in poverty for the foreseeable future.; 1/29/25, 5:12 PM
ALP said...: I have done employment immigration for almost twenty years. I can count the number of cases I've had of professionals and executive/manager types from Africa on one hand. The entire continent is a black hole in terms of producing educated professionals - at least those ambitious enough to come to the US.; 1/29/25, 5:16 PM
tommyesq said...: "Potential" is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence.; 1/29/25, 5:19 PM
Lazarus said...: Western civilization will manage to ruin Africa yet -- that is, to make it affluent, bored and boring. The problem is that ambitious Africans come to the West, rather than stay at home, make something prosperous out of their countries, and propagate our consumerist values so that their countries stop having so many babies.; 1/29/25, 5:22 PM
Lazarus said...: Nigerian-Americans have a higher income and are more likely to have a college degree than other Americans. Granted there aren't so many of them here, but "brain drain" from Africa is something that has often been commented on.; 1/29/25, 5:26 PM
Rocco said...: Leland said...
"[B]irth rates were much higher when mortality rates were higher, because you needed enough kids to make sure some would survive."

And the decrease in the need for a whole lot of little farm hands, largely thanks to automation and increasing crop yields. My great-great-grandfather, a farmer, had 12 kids. However, all of them emigrated to America and started small businesses, worked in factories and offices, etc.; 1/29/25, 5:34 PM
rhhardin said...: The speculation is that you need a certain percentage of smart-level people to run a country in the Western fashion. The ratio of basket-case people to smart people has to be small enough so that there's no suffocating dead load on the smart ones pulling the load. It's low enough in the west and too high in Africa.

There's smart people but too few compared to the load.; 1/29/25, 5:35 PM
Hassayamper said...: Most, but not all. Botswana, Namibia, and Equatorial Guinea are doing well, with Ghana and Rwanda coming up fast. It takes herculean effort to overcome the corruption, tribalism, and deluded love for the Marxist economics taught at Patrice Lumumba University two generations ago, but it can be done.; 1/29/25, 5:35 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "arguably making it comparatively vigorous and more of a hotbed for entrepreneurship and for music and popular culture...."

Jesus Christ! I'm just relieved he didn't use the term "natural rhythm".

No one's more racist than a White middle-class prog.; 1/29/25, 5:41 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: The best slab of Boston Cream Pie I've ever had was in Kinshasa so maybe Kristoff is onto something.; 1/29/25, 5:42 PM
Levi Starks said...: Having recently returned from 2 weeks in Uganda I can confirm there is no shortage of children.; 1/29/25, 5:44 PM
Hassayamper said...: West African physicians from English-speaking countries like Ghana and Nigeria have done well for themselves in the American medical system, at least in my experience. There are a few from other parts of sub-Saharan Africa too. I work with an Ethiopian doctor from time to time.

They are not here in anything like the numbers we see from India, but they punch above their weight.

They do NOT like American-born blacks and their rap/hip-hop/thug life culture, not at all.; 1/29/25, 5:45 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: And the demographic prediction is nonsensical. Because Africa will also have people dying sooner than anywhere else in the world. Younger? Perhaps. More numerous? Doubtful.; 1/29/25, 5:46 PM
Enigma said...: A tech-enabled Africa with a large population = Idi Amin and the Rwandan Massacres on steroids. Big populations = World War Africa? Never underestimate people, it's not possible to underestimate people. Ignore race.; 1/29/25, 5:47 PM
typingtalker said...: Prediction is hard ... especially about the future.; 1/29/25, 5:47 PM
tcrosse said...: Are any sub-Saharan African countries inclusive of disadvantaged racial minorities or the LGBTQ community? If diversity is our strength, then it should be theirs, too amiright?; 1/29/25, 5:54 PM
Jupiter said...: And here is why that mass migration is increasingly unwelcome.; 1/29/25, 5:57 PM
Gospace said...: The population estimates for Africa are from African governments.

Believe them at your own peril.

Like the official Russian population figures for Moscow during the cold war. At least an order of magnitude off from the real population.; 1/29/25, 6:36 PM
john mosby said...: This is when the late Michael K would chime in with praise for his African medical students and interns. RIP, Doc.

JSM; 1/29/25, 6:39 PM
Old and slow said...: This is unsurprising, and most probably unfortunate.; 1/29/25, 7:05 PM
Mr Wibble said...: The Second Congo War was World War Africa, and it looks like we're heading into Third Congo War, only with a whole lot of fun new toys.; 1/29/25, 7:15 PM
Hassayamper said...: Damn, I didn't know he had died. I always enjoyed his perspective.; 1/29/25, 7:26 PM
Hey Skipper said...: "Because of collapsing fertility elsewhere, Africa will make up an increasing share of the world’s population."

Africa's fertility is collapsing, too.

I can't count the number of times those who are supposed demographics experts cite Replacement Fertility (RF) as 2.1 lifetime births per woman.

This is ignorance on stilts. The definition of RF is the number of births per woman to have one daughter survive to survive to child bearing age and be fertile.

In WEIRD societies, on average, lifetime fertility of 2.1/woman results in one fertile daughter of childbearing age.

In sub-Saharan Africa, replacement fertility is around 3.5. As of 2022, actual fertility was 4.5, so more than 2.5

But the rate of decrease is such that (using super precise visual extrapolation) even sub-Saharan Africa will be below replacement by 2035.

A half dozen or so years ago, I did one of those African safari glamping trips. Our guide was from Zimbabwe. At dinner one night, he told us that family sizes had plummeted in his lifetime.

Until the early sixties, there was an evolutionary question that had never been answered, since there was no need to ask it: given both capacity and capability, how many offspring will the female of a species choose to have?

It seems to be not enough.; 1/29/25, 7:46 PM
boatbuilder said...: He might not be wrong. But he's Kristoff, so...; 1/29/25, 8:18 PM
Enigma said...: Not to my knowledge. See the "bushmeat" theory of the origin of AIDS in Africa (link below). One source I read long ago and only vaguely remember said this led to sustained infections in "subpopulations" in urban Africa. Then, international travelers exported it to the western gay hubs. A disputed theory names a specific male flight attendant as Patient Zero.

While the source I read was not clear (by intent), the sustaining subpopulation was likely gay men. As of today, AIDS has entered the general population in Africa and is extremely common in some countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_Africa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABtan_Dugas; 1/29/25, 8:19 PM
Enigma said...: Sub-Saharan Africa is largely tribal, with kings and oligarchs controlling the (poor) masses. Socialism is just a paint of coat on traditional tribes and oligarchs. The corruption (or tradition) is often so fixed that they struggle to develop basic infrastructure like roads, rendering the notion of a 'free-market economy' a distant, distant concept up in the clouds. They do have oil, land, and mineral resources...ripe for Chinese neo-colonialism...

Watch this guy's excellent and unvarnished videos on Africa to understand their current economies and cultures. Educational, not inspiring.

https://www.youtube.com/@IndigoTraveller; 1/29/25, 8:27 PM
Enigma said...: Let's get down to 4 children before we speak of 1 child. Let's see some functional roads and water and sewer systems before we expect to rate living standards. Let's see internal manufacturing (I'll take bicycle factories) before we expect Chinese-style industry. China controls lots of mining and resource extraction in Africa, and are routinely caught saying racist things.

These are completely opposite cultures.; 1/29/25, 8:39 PM
n.n said...: Every population, it seems, has a queer minority. However, to be fair to Africans, their pride parades happen mostly on the plains. Although, albinophobia is traditional in some sects, it's not revered in symbols and rhetoric. Cannibalism is subclinical, and, while unsafe, unlike progressive sects in liberal democracies, performance of human rites are rare.; 1/29/25, 10:54 PM
Keith said...: I work in science. Lancet used to be a premier journal. Quite a long time ago they turned leftists. Their hate for george bush was greater than their love for science. They started printing articles about hundreds of thousands of innocent poor Iraqis that were killed by USA because - science. The science was dodgy and unconvincing. Since then ANYTHING in lancet that might possibly have the slightest political implication is largely nonsense published to advance a political ideology. Just so you know.; 1/30/25, 2:09 AM
NKP said...: The Russians and Chinese, and Europeans before them, pretty much want resources and bits of strategic real estate and that's about it. The Europeans, at least, contributed the infrastructure of civilization and governing templates. Without colonization, Africa would still be mostly stone age. The USA has remained at ocean's remove for the most part. Maybe, focusing on Greenland makes more sense.

Liberation leadership that replaced colonial masters has been mostly corrupt, racist, genocidal and religiously divided. The potential for progress in Sub-Saharan Africa is great but likely to be bitterly and expensively disappointing, IMO. I am, however, impressed by the Kenyan President recently telling his fellow African leaders to quit whining about lack of USA $$$. He wondered why they were expecting the US to fill their coffers, as none of their people were paying US taxes.

One of my most memorable evenings on the road also involved a Kenyan. In 1987, in the middle of a 3 month European solo, I wandered into the bar of a high-end hotel in Grindelwald, hoping to encounter aimiable and interesting companions to pass the evening with. I spotted three possibilites as I entered the room and immediately decided to ask a very big, very black fellow attired in jacket, tie and white shirt if I might join him for a drink. JACKPOT! He welcomed me with bright eyes and genuine 1,000 watt smile.

Turned out he was the KenyanTourism Minister and he saw good and humor in just about everything. We were the same age and shared many a story about me growing up in mostly empty Wyoming and he in a Catholic boarding school in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising. I don't know what "closing time" is in Switzerland but we didn't run out of stories and laughs until it arrived and we went our seperate ways. Brightly lit ships passing in the night. One more reason to put down the remote and abandon the recliner... there's a wonderful world out there.; 1/30/25, 2:19 PM