Population dynamics and environmental quality in Africa

Abstract

The nexus of population dynamics and environmental degradation has been discussed widely in the extant literature. Most related studies have utilized carbon emission as a proxy of environmental quality. However, carbon emission does not capture the multidimensional nature of environmental degradation. To fill this gap, this study utilized the ecological footprint to capture environmental degradation because it is a more dynamic environmental quality measure. The paper examines the population-environmental degradation hypothesis for five populous African countries (DR Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania) using panel information from 1990 to 2019. The Cross-sectionally Augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) was employed to assess the relationship among the data – ecological footprint per capita (ECFP), population growth rate (POPG), population density (POPD), urban population growth rate (URBN), age structure of the population (AGES), per capita GDP growth rate (PGDP), energy consumption (ENEC), and trade openness (TRAD). The findings of the study revealed that POPG, POPD, AGES, PGDP, ENEC and TRAD increase environmental degradation. Urbanization (URBN) has no significant influence on environmental degradation in the selected African countries. The study concludes with policy prescriptions geared towards addressing population expansion and improving environmental quality.