2010 Population Census in Ghana

The statistical service in Ghana announced recently that current population of Ghana is close to 24.5 million.  This figure will strike most readers as nothing to write about because as far as populous countries go, Ghana is nowhere near any of those ‘big’ countries. However, if you consider the 24.5 million people now living in Ghana and the number of people who lived in Ghana in 1957 you see a staggering population growth that will surely make any demographer palpitate. From a figure of a little over 5million in 1957, Ghana’s population has seen an astounding increase of over 390% to its current figure. At a time when most developed/rich countries are recording negative or less than 1% population growth rate, Ghana’s population growth rate stand at almost 2%. Interestingly, the current census revealed that there are 12.4 million males as against 11.8 million females. In a culture where males are implicitly encouraged to ‘see’ other women other than their wives, one can only conclude that more babies are in the offing. (High birth rate remains the largest culprit to population growth in Africa)  

Following the discussion on the census, some analysts seem to be arguing that the 24.5 million figure should be seen as a ‘glass is half full’ scenario. They claim that after all more people means a wider tax net, a bigger market pool and more people to contribute to the development match of the country. However, I wonder how these benefits can accrue to the nation when the figures clearly show that majority the population is below the age of 25. I wonder how these people, many of whom are in the unproductive age, are going to contribute to a bigger market pool when they do not have any real purchasing power. How is the tax net going to widen when they have no income in the first place? On the contrary, the evidence points to a higher rate of urbanization confirmed by the springing up and growth of shanty towns which themselves have becomes islands that create and export all the vices and evils you can think of that fights against development.

I believe the consensus is that the current demographic figures are serious cause for concern. At this unsustainable level, there is very little chance that any attempt at real economic growth will make a dent in the stagnation of the nation. Interestingly, these figures are not peculiar to Ghana, but they form a broad trend that is symptomatic of population growth of African countries. From Nigeria to Kenya to Zambia, we see an average of over 2% annual population growth within the last 30 years.  Within eastern Africa, not even the wars within the Congo Basin and high HIV/AIDS deaths have been able to slow population growth. 

In Africa, much of our notion of family size is cultural. And I am afraid not much can be done to change how we think about the size of families. We have been socialized from birth to think that it is the place of every woman to have children and many of them. For the men, you have to have a child to pass on your genes. Thus the typical African man will have kids with or without his wife. And they will keep on producing until they have a son, as if to say daughters are defective beings. Our culture has for a long time celebrated large families and we continue to do that today. Even when people are living in abject poverty, their prowess for having many kids has been praise by society.  For me accelerated access to education (specifically tertiary education) by females is one of the surest ways to reduce the rate of population growth. Let us give women something they can aspire to so that their lives will not be all about having babies. Research has shown that in almost every society, highly educated females have a lower birth rate than their less educated compatriots. As for the average African man, he cannot be trusted. No matter how educated he is, he still sticks to his basic instincts of producing and producing.