Demographic transition: the predicament of sub-Saharan Africa
Date
1996
Authors
Gaisie, S. Kwesi
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Health Transition Centre, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University
Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa consists of countries regarded as underdeveloped or developing and is part of the so-called Third World. Third World countries share many characteristics but at the continental level they are not the same. For instance, sub-Saharan Africa is sparsely populated, in contrast to South and East Asia, and it is much less urbanized than Latin America. It stands out among the other major regions of the Third World as having the slowest rate of economic growth in recent years: an average annual growth rate of gross domestic product of 2.4 per cent between 1980 and 1990 compared to 3.0 per cent in South Asia, 4.3 in Middle East and North Africa and 3.1 per cent in Latin America during the same period; its population growth is outstripping that of food production and also it is politically Balkanized, consisting of a large number of countries most of which are small and at an early stage of development. There are 50 of them, including South Africa and British Indian Ocean Territory. The latter is excluded from the discussion for lack of demographic information while the former will not figure much for a number of reasons. We know more about the demographic profiles of the other countries of the region than we do about South Africa. Reports on the methodology of studies conducted in South Africa are not published and major questions on coverage, sampling methods, response rates and other factors remain unanswered (Caldwell and Caldwell 1993).
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Africa, demographic transition, mortality, infrastructure, fertility, population growth, Third World
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