Population Growth and Poverty in Africa: Debunking the Neo-Malthusian Myth
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65655/c1v8gg88Keywords:
population growth and poverty, human capital investment, dependency theory, Africa demographic dividend, governance and development, biblically grounded anthropocentrism, neo-Malthusian discourseAbstract
Background: Conventional development discourse often assigns primary blame for Africa’s entrenched poverty to rapid population growth, yet this narrative rests on contested empirical and ethical foundations. Purpose: This article reframes the debate by integrating Human Capital Theory, Dependency Theory and a biblically informed anthropocentric ethic to test whether fertility rates, by themselves, drive poverty in the Global South. Methods: Using a mixed-methods design, we conduct (i) a panel-data analysis of 135 countries (1980-2024), (ii) comparative case studies of China, India and Nigeria, and (iii) thematic and discourse analysis of 120 population-policy documents published between 2018 and 2024. Results: Fixed-effects and instrumental-variables estimations show governance quality, not total fertility rate, as the robust predictor of extreme-poverty incidence (β ≈ -0.42, p < .001). China and India leveraged large populations through human-capital investment and structural transformation, whereas Nigeria’s persistent poverty correlates with governance deficits despite oil wealth. Discourse evidence reveals neo-Malthusian and geopolitical biases that cast people as liabilities, often eclipsing structural inequities in trade and resource governance. Implications: Treating people as value-creating assets suggests a policy pivot from fertility control to human-capital expansion, job-rich industrialisation and equitable global integration. This people-centred paradigm promises to convert Africa’s youthful demographic wave into an engine of inclusive growth, aligning economic efficiency with the intrinsic dignity affirmed by biblical anthropology. Conclusion: Poverty in high-fertility contexts is mediated by institutional quality and capability investment, not population size per se. Development strategies that honour human dignity while strengthening governance and opportunity can render the “population-causes-poverty” thesis obsolete
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