The unspoken risk in population clamour

From Australia, Germany, Canada and the US, many countries use a variety of tactics to attract skilled workers to their shores. An old such scheme is the US green card lottery.

News reports indicate that the US is considering a baby bonus of $5,000 to incentivise women to have more children. It sounds very similar to calls by Kenyan politicians for “their” people to go forth and multiply.

If they adopt the plan, the US will be joining a long list of nations that have done so, including South Korea, Singapore, France, Australia, Canada Russia and Poland. Other countries offer a percentage of one’s salary during maternity leave and free childcare services.

Many countries see an ageing population as a key threat to economic well-being because seniors have left the workforce, and there are no sufficient replacements for younger working-age citizens. Some experts claim that populations in Western countries have fallen below the minimum replacement fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman.

Absent immigration, this population will continue to decline. Asia is not fairing any better. In 2016, China lifted its one-child policy, in place since 1979, but is yet to see a significant increase in fertility rates.

Population size is a major factor in resource allocation in Kenya. The consensus is that allocation was skewed during the first four decades after independence. Many parts of Kenya were marginalised. The allocation patterns followed population density and the arbitrary view of technocrats and politicians alike about what constitutes high-potential areas.

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That view, expressed formally in Sessional Paper number 10 of 1965, focused the scarce resources on high-potential areas and expected to use the accruing proceeds to pull the rest up.

In the event, re-distribution never happened. The framers of the 2010 Constitution tried to cure this re-distribution problem by creating devolved governments and guaranteeing them a minimum of 15 percent of nationally raised revenues.

They then created the Commission for Revenue Allocation (CRA) as an independent arbiter to determine the vertical allocation between the two levels of government, and the horizontal allocation among counties. Both formulas rely heavily on population size, and income, usually expressed through the poverty index.

Driven by these considerations of resource allocation and for purposes of electoral might, many politicians have convinced themselves that their areas need rapid population growth, prompting their calls for more children. It led to the infamous controversy over 2009 census numbers for the northeastern region. But population growth comes with attendant risks.

Regularly, up to 4.4 million Kenyans, about 27 percent of the arid and semi-arid land population suffer acute food insecurity. When I was in high school, “the population explosion” was a popular debate subject.

Kenya was doing well compared to its peers in promoting family planning and reducing the number of children per woman from 6.7 in 1989 to 3.4 in 2022. Ultimately the population growth has declined to about 1.98 percent per annum in recent times.

Development economics of yesteryear described least developed countries in unflattering terms. These were countries characterised by high rural-urban migration, which was thought to lead directly to slums and urban poverty, stressing the provision of social services, transport and housing. Before the Internet and social media, we listened to Voice of Kenya.

We marvelled as children, at the government’s regular message to the people, turudi mashambani (let’s go back to rural areas).

A more positive view of urbanisation sees the economic opportunity. Kenya has 11 towns and five cities with populations exceeding 155,000 inhabitants each. This has been a great opportunity for construction, whose boom has lasted decades. As a result, domestic cement production is 9.2 million tonnes annually, up from just 1.2 million 20 years ago.

Still, there are risks, the key being food. About 29 percent of Kenya’s urban population is food poor. They cannot meet their daily calorific requirements, because they cannot afford food.

Between 1950 and 2023, there were 19 droughts, basically once every four years. Moreover, the period between droughts is decreasing. During half the droughts, food shortages were so severe as to require widespread relief.

Politicians would do well to weigh these risks carefully.

Ndiritu Muriithi is an economist and partner at Ecocapp Capital.  He is also the chairman of KRA and former governor of Laikipia County. Email: [email protected]