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Economics

利用非洲的人口红利

Nov 20, 2018 Carl Manlan

洛美—非洲拥有全世界最年轻、增长最快的人口。未来三十年，每年都会有多达2,000万年轻人加入劳动力，非洲面临着改变本地和全球增长平衡的机会：就业。但这绝非定局。

非洲国家要想利用这一人口红利，未来劳动力就必须接受教育和训练，并拥有充足的就业机会。同时满足这些条件绝非易事。

现时代是全球经济的不确定时代。美国与中国之间的贸易紧张威胁着全球价值链的完整性，即将发生的英国退欧有可能导致更大的破坏。国际货币基金组织（IMF）在其10月份的预测中警告说，随着历史性的经济引擎的熄火，今年和明年全球增长可能下降至3.7%，较此前的预测降低0.2个百分点。

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Henk Crop Dec 10, 2018

I think the term Demograpic Dividend is totally misplaced.

For a constant population you will only need a birthrate of 2,1 child per woman.
In Africa they have birthrate that go up to 7,4.
This high birthrate has a double effect. It keeps the people poor and it raises young people for which there is no work. No work means no future. Therefore I think family planning should receive top priority.

African countries should develop stable Governments. No corruption.
Develop education. Develop some social security.

Apply free market principle. Develop the local economy, farmers, small businesses.

Earning from the export of natural resources should be used to finance the above.

Migration to the EU is counterproductive. Integrating an immigrant in the EU cost more than Euro 100,000.- per immigrant. So the EU will have less money available for support in Africa.
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Prashant Kotak Nov 21, 2018

Yet another Economist boasting about a 'Demographic Dividend' resulting from a population bulge. Delusional. I guarantee you it ain't gonna pan out that way. I will paint a different picture of what will instead happen, and I challenge anyone to put forward *any* cogent arguments why my nightmare scenario won't happen.

Africa urbanising and industrialising won't provide decades of employment for Africa's millions. This time, automation will do most of the work. Over the next decade and a half, Africa's elites, and external countries and companies operating in Africa will bring in automation and AI tech from advanced nations, and cut out vast swathes of Africa's poorest from employment. But not just blue collar work. Traditional urban office work is also set to become mostly automated. The pressure is on in Africa to vacate the countryside and urbanise, but just for a second, project the situation in a decade and a half: vast slums containing millions of unemployed people surrounding little city centers with shiny skyscrapers, because the cities will provide no work, *none* of the traditional employments of the twentieth century - those shiny skyscrapers will provide advanced work for a few hundred thousand IT people and 'Facilitators' instead of jobs in the millions in factories and offices. And the problem for Africa is compounded by the brutal fact that Africa neither innovates, nor owns any of this tech, nor does it have anywhere near sufficient numbers of STEM educated and trained people to be able to ride over to new types of employments like programming, so Africa cannot participate in the creation of the next wave of tech.

So, I am compelled to ask the bleakest of questions: Do we face another Heart of Darkness in Africa in a decade and a half?
- lt lee Nov 22, 2018
  
  Largely agree. But a connected Africa with more educated populace would mean better and more equitably distributed return for its rich resources. AI would reduce job growth. But the negative impact would be bigger in information workers' jobs more than semi-skilled workers' jobs.
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