Assessment of demographic factors in Africa’s development.
Demography
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Issue: 1
(02 - 2021)
Background: An enabling environment is an important element for economic development. African
countries ranl‹ low on indices of development. The low level of development is rhetorically partly
attributed to demographic factors, but quantitative assessment of the relationship is hardly
produced to back up the rhetoric.
Data Source and Methods: Data sourced from the United Nations, UNAIDS, the World Banl‹, Health and
Nutrition and Population Statistics of the World Bank were utilized in the study. The analysis
consisted of bi-variate and multivariate regression.
Results: The results suggest that the level of child dependency is significantly negatively
associated with the level of development in African countries controlling for other demographic
factors.
Conclusion: The study found no evidence that total fertility rate and population growth have
significant
effect on gross national income per capital.
Keywords: African development, Economic development, Population growth, Fertility, Child
dependency, Migration.
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