africa

8. Avoiding an African Spring:
Confronting Africa’s
“Employment Problem”
John Page
Brookings Institution
8.1 Introduction
Africa has enjoyed almost 20 years of sustained economic growth. During the last
decade six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were in Sub-Saharan Africa,
and cheerleaders as diverse as The Economist and the International Monetary Fund
now routinely hail “emerging Africa.” Yet there are worrying signs that Africa’s growth
has not resulted in robust growth of “good” jobs—those offering higher wages and
better working conditions—especially for the young. Driven by a delayed demographic
transition, the population share of youth (aged 15-24) in Africa both north and south
of the Sahara has been rising over time and is now larger than in any other part of
the world. This demographic bulge offers the possibility of a growth dividend, but
it can also represent a major threat. Africa is not creating enough jobs to absorb
the 10-12 million young people entering its labor markets each year and, as recent
events in North Africa have shown, lack of meaningful employment opportunities
in the face of a rapidly growing young labor force can undermine social cohesion
and political stability.
This paper addresses the question of how to avoid an “African Spring.” Its central
message is that Africa’s employment problem is a symptom of its lack of structural
change (Arbache and Page, 2009). While many African economies have low
133