Abstract
In this paper, we empirically explore the dynamic relationship between fertility, employment, and the demographic dividend in an African incipient demographic transition country namely, Mali. More precisely, we adopt a dynamic macro-econometric modeling approach to deal with the issue from 1990 to 2019. Our results indicate that employment has a direct and permanent positive effect on the demographic dividend in Mali as found by the literature. However and contrary to the conventional view in the literature, we interestingly find that fertility has a positive and significant long-run effect on the demographic dividend in Mali, although it seems to have non-significant short-run effects. Two persistent driving forces help to explain this fertility puzzle: (i) the desire of Malians to have a large family coupled with households’ low living standards, and (ii) the dominance of the informal economy. As families willingly grow, the situation progressively puts pressure on households and particularly on women to engage in informal employment to meet their additional needs. The increase in informal employment has in turn positive effects on the demographic dividend. This finding provides crucial policy implications for Malian policymakers, notably in terms of rethinking policies towards capturing an efficient demographic dividend through enhancing labor productivity in the informal economy, rather than focusing on fertility reduction policies.
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Notes
However, a second dividend can occur when the population concentrated at older working ages and facing an extended period of retirement has a powerful incentive to accumulate assets. See Lee and Mason (2006) for detailed explanations of this concept.
Although the concept of the first demographic dividend is consensually defined as the growth rate of the support ratio, this ratio is calculated in a slightly different way in the National Transfert Accounts (NTA) literature by weighting it with age profiles. See Lee and Mason (2011) for detailed explanations of the NTA approach to calculate the support ratio.
The employment-to-population ratio is the proportion of a country’s population (aged 15 +) that is employed.
The total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children by age-specific fertility rates of the specified year. This is the conventional measure of a country’s fertility rate.
Numbers without parentheses represent statistics for unit root tests, and numbers in parentheses represent their corresponding p values. *** and ** denote statistical significance at the 1% and 5% levels respectively, and ∆ stands for the variables in the first differences.
This variable taken from UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) indicates the number of years a person of school entrance age can expect to spend within the primary level of education. Details of these robustness estimation results can be provided upon request.
*** and ** denote statistical significance at the 1% and 5% levels respectively, and variable SCHOOL stands for the primary school life expectancy in growth rate.
For instance, a study carried out by the Observatoire National de l’Emploi et de la Formation (ONEF, 2015) in Mali shows that more than 96% of total employment is informal in Mali.
See Fig. 4 in the Appendix to get more insights into the phenomenon.
Goal 8 is related to promoting sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to professors and PhD students of the Center for Economic and Social Research (CURES) for their comments, as well as all participants of the 2nd Edition of the NTA-Africa Conference held in Senegal in October 2021. All remaining errors are our own.
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Appendix
Appendix
See Fig. 4.
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M’baye, C.K. Fertility, employment, and the demographic dividend in sub-Saharan African countries with incipient demographic transition: evidence from Mali. J Pop Research 40, 7 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-023-09299-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-023-09299-7
Keywords
- African incipient demographic transition countries
- Fertility
- Employment
- Demographic dividend
- Macro-econometric modeling