Africa in 2050: The coming of the 'youthquake'

There is a surge of ageing populations across the world as average life expectancy, living conditions and healthcare improve. While countries like Japan, for example, already have 30% of their population over 60 years old, by 2050, the ageing population (60 years and above) will reach 2.1 billion worldwide. 

During the same timeframe, the number of people aged 80 or above is expected to triple.

But the case of Africa is different – the continent is projected to be the youngest one in the world in the future. While a growing population, in general, has its limitations – a growing youth population has its perks.

By 2035, according to the IMF, there will be more young Africans entering the workforce than the rest of the world combined. While Africa's current economy and geopolitical climate may cast doubt on the continent's ability to reap the demographic dividend, with the right investment in education, technology and entrepreneurship, the potential remains stupendous. 

More than 60% of Africa's population is now under the age of 25 and this number is estimated to burgeon further when its population reaches 2.5 billion from today's 1.4 billion. It's the high fertility rate along with declining child mortality which contributes to the 'youthquake' in Africa – a term coined by some demography experts. 

One in particular is Edward Paice, director of Africa Research Institute. He was a history scholar at Cambridge University and winner of the Leman Prize and also authored a book titled 'Youthquake: Why African Demography Should Matter to the World.'

While one in four people on the planet by 2050 will be African, the world is already taking notice of their influence on culture and their rise in the political sphere. African music, for example, is now a global phenomenon. Think of Nigerian rapper Rema's Calm Down with Selena Gomez, which won over the entire world. It also won the first Afrobeats award at the 2023 MTV VMAs earlier this year. Afrobeats songs were streamed over 13 billion times on Spotify last year. 

There's also been a seismic change regarding the African culture's influence in movies, fashion and literature.

There are still waves of Africans who continue to risk their lives to migrate, and their entrepreneurial drive and scramble for jobs are also noticeable, as manifested in a recent 2023 New York Times story "The World Is Becoming More African." Combined with the youth drive, cultural dominance, entrepreneurial sense, migration worldwide and a massive population, the 2050s will see the world renew its relationship with a growing Africa.

While the developed world is increasingly anxious about how they would care for, and pay for their ageing society, Africa sees a baby boom – thanks to which by 2050, one-third of all young people aged 15-24 in the world will be African, according to the United Nations.

At present, Africa's median age is 19, which is 28 in India, and 38 in the United States. The ballooning African cities are on the rise in number, youth and vigour. According to the OECD, Africa is projected to have the fastest urban growth rate in the world; by 2050, Africa's cities will be home to an additional 950 million people. Much of this growth is taking place in small and medium-sized towns. Africa's urban transition offers great opportunities but it also poses significant challenges.

The African political leaders are now courted in summits around the world, not to forget Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, who won the Nobel Prize in peace in 2019. Besides the size of the population and youth, Africa's number of millionaires is increasing seismically. According to Credit Suisse, the number of African millionaires is to double to 768,000 by 2027.

When low birth rates are creating older, smaller populations in the West, and the rest of the developed world – Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, for example, warned their society was on the verge of dysfunction where the median age is 48 – the African gifts of youth could drive the continent to new possibilities as development leaders and change agents, if the continent's SDG indicators, economy and geopolitics improve.