Africa, is an interesting test case of whether money can slow the sub-Saharan population juggernaut, because oil-rich Angola had plenty of money from the end of its civil war in 2002 until the oil price drop a couple of years ago.
It often seemed like much of Portugal had moved to Luanda, Angola to build highrise apartments for the better-connected Angolans. From the NYT:
When the war ended, Angola enjoyed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Its production of oil was set to swell and prices would remain high for years. Unlike many other African nations emerging from war, Angola had more than enough money to rebuild, on its own terms, a landscape destroyed by conflict.
The skyline of the capital, Luanda, was quickly reshaped with skyscrapers. Gigantic satellite towns, the likes of which had never been seen in Africa, mushroomed in the outskirts of Luanda. New roads and railways stretched into the interior.
The president’s eldest daughter, Isabel dos Santos, has become Africa’s first female billionaire, according to Forbes Magazine, which estimates her wealth at $3.3 billion.
Isabel is sort of the mirror image of Obama, born of another Cold War boondoggle. Her Russian mom met her African dad when he got a free college education in the Soviet Union. She’s done even better for herself, net worth-wise, than Obama has.
Expatriate workers can often be seen performing tasks that locals would undertake elsewhere in Africa. On a main road in Luanda, half a dozen Portuguese workers were painting lane lines on a recent afternoon.
Anyway, you would think that all the construction and urbanization would have driven down Angola’s total fertility rate, right?
And it has come down … relative to Niger’s.
But it’s still over six babies per woman.
So the UN’s population prospect for Angola is another sci-fi absurdity:
But Angola’s reconstruction and oil boom also presented the politically connected — those with “relatives in the kitchen,” as Angolans say — with a golden opportunity for self-enrichment. In an economy driven by President José Eduardo dos Santos, his inner circle of family and allies have amassed extraordinary wealth.
