Epilogue: Demography and Population Politics, 1945–75

Summary

In the historiography on post-Second World War demographic developments, it has often been argued that fears of de- and underpopulation regarding Africa subsided and gave way to a new discourse that problematised rapid population growth and imminent overpopulation instead. Karl Ittmann and Monica van Beusekom, for instance, have identified such changes in the population discourse among colonial experts in French West Africa and parts of British Africa, most notably Kenya and Nigeria.¹ This discursive reversal was not only due to local changes, nor was it nurtured by colonial experts alone. After the Second World War, the demographic development of Africa was increasingly viewed through the lens of a global discourse that considered unbridled population growth in the so-called ‘Third World’ an ecological and political risk for the planet and one of the main reasons for persistent underdevelopment, poverty and global inequality. Excessive population growth was a constitutive feature of this new ‘Third World’.²