Volume 42 - Article 3 | Pages 57–98  

Migrant-based youth bulges and social conflict in urban sub-Saharan Africa

By Ashira Menashe-Oren

Abstract

Background: Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced relatively high population growth, which raises concerns about the potential contribution of large young cohorts, termed ‘youth bulges’, to unrest. Youth bulges, under the right circumstances, can expand productivity and boost economic growth, but they have also been found to enable civil war, corruption, and democracy collapse, especially where resources are scarce.

Objective: This paper considers youth bulges characterised by high proportions of rural‒urban migrants and examines their effects on the likelihood of social conflict in urban sub-Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2013.

Methods: United Nations data on urban and rural populations by age and sex is combined with the Social Conflict Analysis Database to create a cross-section time series dataset. Negative binomial models are used to examine the relationship between youth bulges and conflict using country level fixed effects.

Results: The study finds that a migrant-based youth bulge does not increase the likelihood of urban social conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, female youth bulges, often neglected when studying conflict, are found to increase the likelihood of conflict.

Conclusions: The overall disassociation between young rural‒urban migrants and social conflict is encouraging. All the same, women were found to play a role in conflict, and women should therefore be considered in future studies.

Contribution: This article characterises the composition of youth bulges – an important factor that has previously been ignored ‒ by examining whether youth bulges composed largely of rural‒urban migrants are more likely to increase the likelihood of conflict in urban sub-Saharan Africa.

Author's Affiliation

• Ashira Menashe-Oren - Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Improving old-age mortality estimation with parental survival histories in surveys
Volume 51 - Article 45

The dynamic role of household structure on under-5 mortality in southern and eastern sub-Saharan Africa
Volume 49 - Article 11

Migration’s contribution to the urban transition: Direct census estimates from Africa and Asia
Volume 48 - Article 24

Urban–rural disparities in adult mortality in sub-Saharan Africa
Volume 39 - Article 5

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Children under 5 in polygynous households in sub-Saharan Africa, 2000 to 2020
Volume 51 - Article 32    | Keywords: children, Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), family demography, polygyny, sub-Saharan Africa

Using Respondent-Driven Sampling to measure abortion safety in restrictive contexts: Results from Kaya (Burkina Faso) and Nairobi (Kenya)
Volume 50 - Article 47    | Keywords: induced abortion, respondents-driven samples, social networks, sub-Saharan Africa

Predictive utility of key family planning indicators on dynamic contraceptive outcomes: Results from longitudinal surveys in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda, and Côte d'Ivoire
Volume 50 - Article 45    | Keywords: contraception, contraceptive adoption, contraceptive discontinuation, contraceptive use, family planning, longitudinal data, methods, panel data, Performance and Monitoring for Action (PMA) surveys, sub-Saharan Africa

Moving towards gender equality in China: The influence of migration experiences on rural migrants’ gender role attitudes
Volume 49 - Article 14    | Keywords: China, culture, gender attitudes, gender roles, rural-urban migration

The dynamic role of household structure on under-5 mortality in southern and eastern sub-Saharan Africa
Volume 49 - Article 11    | Keywords: child mortality, Health and Demographic Surveillance System, household structure, sub-Saharan Africa