In terms of global population ageing[1], it is not unfair to suggest that Africa has been a sleeping giant.
The early decades of the 21st century saw most global populations continue to age as mortality continued the decline at all ages. This process had begun in the early stages of the demographic transition and accelerated as levels of childbearing declined and remained stubbornly low (as in Europe and parts of Asia) or continued their transition decline (as in other parts of Asia, Latin America and some parts of Africa). Population ageing – once seen only as a challenge for the developed economies of Europe and North America – has become an almost global phenomenon.
The notable exception has been much of sub-Saharan Africa, which has remained relatively young in demographic terms, but this is also forecast to change as the sleeping giant awakens to join the global ageing march.
Since 1950, global population has grown year-on-year without interruption from just under 2.5 billion persons to just over 8 billion persons in 2023. This trend of growth is forecast by the United Nations (op. cit. 5) to continue until 2084 when global population will peak at just under 10.3 billion persons. Alongside this growth, the world has witnessed the ageing of the global population – both at an individual and population level.
This ageing is, however, not uniform across the world. The ageing of the populations of Europe began with the classic demographic transition, a transition which in this case continued for approximately 150 years. This relatively slow process gave societies time to adjust as their populations transitioned from young to old, seeing the introduction of long term care services, housing and transport, and pensions systems for older populations. In the transitional economies of the world, this same demographic transition has only recently begun and is more dramatic in terms of scale, but also in terms of speed, leaving societies in these economies with little time to adjust. By the mid-twentieth century, population ageing was demographically dominant in Europe and North America while elsewhere populations remained young.
As Europe and North America aged through the twentieth century, for these populations the future seemed to be one with below-replacement levels of childbearing and extreme longevity. In Europe, life expectancy at birth for both sexes was 62 years in 1950. It had reached 79.1 years in 2023 and is forecast to reach 89.4 years in 2100 (op.cit.5). The corresponding figures for Europe for age 65 years and 80 years respectively are 13.2 years, 19.4 years and 26.4 years, and 5.5 years, 9.2 years and 13.3 years.
Moving forward, the populations of much of Asia will age significantly, driven mainly but not exclusively by declining levels of childbearing. This in itself presents challenges to individuals, families, and society as a whole, not least because most of these societies rely heavily on the family in respect of support for (an increasing and longer-lived number of) older people, while these traditional support networks are threatened by changes in the modern family.
The populations of Latin America and the Caribbean began in the 21st century to experience this ageing, leaving Africa as the final continent of youth – but for how long? The signs of the ageing of Africa are becoming stronger, and although the continent has not caught up with the rest of the world, more people are living into old age, comprising a larger proportion of the population, and older Africans are living longer introducing the concept of extreme longevity in this context (here we regard extreme longevity as living beyond age 80 year, expressed by life expectancy at 80 years of age).
In 1950, just 7.5 million persons amounting to around 3 per cent of Africa’s population of 228 million were aged 65 years and over. By 2023, this older segment of the population had increased to 5.6 per cent and 83.5 million of the continent’s total population of almost 1.5 billion, and by the end of the twenty-first century, the figures are forecast to reach 14.7 per cent and 563 million of the continent’s 3.8 billion people. The geo-demographic scales will have moved definitively to Africa and Asia by the end of the 21st century. Of the world’s forecast 10.2 billion inhabitants, Africa will be home to 3.8 billion comprising 37 per cent of the global population, and Asia will be home to 45 per cent.
Life expectancies have shown the same upward trend experienced elsewhere. Life expectancy at birth for both sexes in Africa has increased from 37.2 years in 1950 to 63.8 years in 2023, and it is expected to continue to increase, reaching 74.9 years by the year 2100. Despite its youth, Africa is also witnessing older people living longer lives. Life expectancy for both sexes at age 65 years has increased from 10.7 years in 1950 to 13.9 years in 2023, and is forecast to reach 17.6 years by the year 2100, and life expectancy for both sexes at age 80 years has increased from 4.7 years in 1950 to 6.2 years in 2023, and is forecast to reach 8.5 years by the year 2100.
While still a youthful continent, African policy makers can no longer claim that people do not live to old age on the continent. While still a youthful continent, Africa is beginning its ageing pathway, leading to increasing proportions and numbers of older and extreme aged older people and to extreme longevity.
The demographic data for Africa reveal unsurprisingly a significant variation from country to country, ranging from high to low fertility and high to low life expectancies at both and at age 80 years. In sub-Saharan Africa, total fertility in 2023 ranged from 1.24 in Mauritius to more than 6 in Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Chad, Niger and the Central African Republic. and where life expectancy at age 80 years ranged from 4.7 years in Togo and Mali to more than 8 in Mauritius and Uganda.
Four of the 48 SSA countries (Seychelles, South Africa, Mauritius and Cape Verde) fall into a low childbearing group (Total Fertility Rate TFR less than 2.5) and all four have life expectancies at age 80 years greater than 6 years. Seven of the countries fall into the next level of childbearing (between 2.5 and 3.49) and all of these have life expectancies at age 80 years greater than 6 years (Ghana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Djibouti, Namibia, Kenya and Botswana).
The majority of the 48 countries (24 in total) have levels of childbearing between 3.5 and 4.49 and all but two of these (Togo and Burkina Faso) have life expectancies at age 80 years greater than 5 years, with 12 having life expectancies at age 80 years above 6 years. Thirteen of the 48 countries have levels of childbearing greater than 4.5 and all but one of these (Mali) have life expectancies at age 80 years greater than 5 years.
Sub-Saharan demography spans from long-lived/low childbearing (for example, South Africa) to long-lived/high childbearing (Tanzania) to not so long-lived/high childbearing (Mali). This alone makes a nonsense of discussing sub-Saharan Africa as a block of countries. The differences may seem modest, but the outcomes in terms of their demographic futures can be significant.
If we for simplicity just consider these three extremes (South Africa, Tanzania and Mali), their ageing trajectories are quite different.
Of the three, South Africa will age more dramatically with the proportion of the population aged 80 years and over increasing from just 1.2 per cent in 2025 to 5.9 per cent by 2100 (almost 400 per cent increase). Life expectancy at age 80 years will over the same period increase from 8.7 years to 10.9 years (a 25 per cent increase). In terms of the proportion of the population aged 80 years and over, Tanzania fares somewhat better relatively speaking the proportion increasing from 0.5 per cent in 2025 to 3.2 per cent in 2100 (more than 500 per cent increase). And life expectancy at age 80 years is expected to increase from 7.3 years to 9.5 years (a 30 per cent increase). In Mali, the proportion aged 80 years and over is expected to increase from 0.3 per cent to 1.7 per cent, remaining relatively young as a population despite dramatic increases in this proportion (over 450 per cent). And life expectancy at age 80 years is forecast to increase from 4.7 to 6.1 years (a 30 per cent increase).
So, at these demographic levels of ageing, the future promises dramatic increases in population ageing and longevity.
One of the real impacts of this ageing for policy makers is in the increase in numbers of extreme aged (80 years and over) in these three countries. The population aged 80 years and over in Mali while only increasing to 1.7 per cent of the total population will in absolute terms increase from just 64,000 in 2025 to almost 1.5 million by the end of the 21st century. In Tanzania, the increase over the same period is from 324,000 to 8.5 million and in South Africa from 752,000 to 5.5 million.
But at the same time, the continent will remain young. The region's share of the world's young people is expected to increase dramatically. Currently, around 20 per cent of the world's population under age 25 years resides in SSA, and by 2035, projections suggest there will be more young Africans entering the workforce annually than in the rest of the world combined. By 2050, SSA is expected to account for around 35 per cent of the global adolescent population globally and about one-quarter of the total global workforce, and by the end of the 21st century, almost half of the world's youth are projected to be from Africa.
The region and the world needs to wake up to these demographic trends and for Africa the challenge is to turn this into a real demographic window of opportunity to bolster not just its own development but also that of the global community where youth is fading fast.
[1] Leeson, G.W. (2019) Editorial: Global Demographic Change and the Case of Low Fertility. Population Horizons, 15(1) DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pophzn-2018-0007
About the Author
George Leeson is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Population Ageing, where he co-ordinates the Latin American Research Network on Ageing (LARNA) and the Central and Eastern European Research Network on Ageing (EAST).
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