Demographic pressure and development: a focus on sub-Saharan countries

Silvana Salvini, Università di Firenze
Fausta Ongaro, Università di Padova

High fertility and demographic pressure – combined with lack of gender equality and women’s empowerment - may put in doubt development. The aim of our analysis is to study the role played by the demographic pressure and behavior on the Human Development Index in the sub-Saharan Africa. After analyzing the territorial variability of Human Development Index (HDI) among and into some sub-Saharan countries at district level, we intend to understand if there is some form of association between Municipal Human Development Index and its components and some indicators of demographic structure. The hypothesis we want to verify is that the higher the level of demographic pressure (for examples the level of fertility), the lower the level of development, also considering the contextual variables. The results of our analysis may be useful at political level too, considering that schooling and health (included in the MHDI) represent crucial variables in the governments’ interventions.