Enhanced basic social services, employment and productivity: essential conditions for a demographic dividend

John G. Cleland, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
Angela Baschieri, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Ethiopia
Tassew Woldehanna, Addis Ababa University

As a consequence of declining fertility, Ethiopia’s working age population will grow faster than the population of infants and children. Between 2015 and 2030, the number of people aged 15-64 years will grow by 56%, with an average increment of 1.7 million per year. The greatest challenge facing the country is to improve the productivity of this rapidly growing labour force. Unless this is achieved, the advantage of reduced fertility will be modest. The opportunities and threats are analysed in this paper using the latest demographic projections from the Central Statistical Agency.