Economic Growth and Quality of Life in Africa

Abstract

Economic growth is an important instrument for reducing poverty and improving quality of life. Having spent a long time in sluggish growth territory, Africa's surge in economic growth since the mid- to late 1990s was indeed worth celebrating. The question is: to what extent was this improvement in growth inclusive and thus shared, by benefitting the quality of life of the broader population? This chapter analyses the growth performance in Africa between 1960 and 2016 and its effect on various quality of life measures. We analyse the full period as well as splitting it into two sub-periods, in order to separate the lost decade-era and the era of high growth in Africa. We find that, contrary to expectation, the period of high growth appears not to have significant positive growth spill-over effects on either the average wealth per person, or the quality of life measures. This is in contrast with the improvements in selected quality of life indicators, as measured by the performance in the Millennium Development Goals. The implications highlighted by this analysis suggest that the recent growth in Africa was not inclusive, as it failed to contribute to the improvement in the quality of life of its citizens, thus putting the sustainability of the improvement in jeopardy.