Tracing the roots of population growth
West Africa experienced some of the world's fastest population growth during the twentieth century, yet the historical reasons for this remain poorly understood. This thesis sheds new light on two key drivers – falling death rates and rising birth rates – in French-speaking West Africa between 1880 and 1980.
Using birth and death records from colonial Senegal, the research shows that infant mortality began declining in the city of Saint-Louis as early as around 1900, making it one of the earliest recorded mortality declines in West Africa. Importantly, these improvements in health preceded improvements in rural areas by almost four decades. However, these improvements were not shared equally. Colonial public health interventions disproportionately benefited wealthier and more educated families, leaving poorer populations behind.
The thesis also uncovers evidence that birth rates were rising, not falling, across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from around the 1940s onwards. This challenges the conventional expectation that birth rates decline as death rates fall. An analysis of this rise in birth rates suggests that improving health conditions actually enabled more women to have children by reducing infertility, particularly in Mali and Burkina Faso. In Niger, shorter gaps between births appear to have been the more important factor.
Together, these findings show that West Africa's population boom was driven by both fewer deaths and more births. Moreover, it shows that health improvements under colonial rule had complex and unequal consequences.