Social policies driven by labour scarcity: colonial social policies in the concession economies of the United Nation subregion Middle Africa and their legacy

Abstract

There is a growing literature on the legacy of colonial social policies in sub-Saharan Africa. In the UN subregion Middle Africa, the colonial period is marked by concession economies. However, the francophone and especially the iberophone countries of this region are largely ignored in the literature. A literature-based historical sociology approach is used to answer two research questions to address this gap: What were the driving forces of social policies in concession economies? And what is their post-colonial legacy? Case studies of the concession economies of Angola, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and São Tomé e Príncipe have been made. They reveal three key drivers of social services and schemes in concession economies: the scarcity of labour, domestic pressure and international pressure. The social services and schemes provided varied. They were most extensive in company towns where at the end of the colonial period the social reproduction of the workforce was possible, less extensive in what could be termed company villages, smaller in the scattered plantations and forest camps, and too small to create a permanent workforce in one concession. However, in a context of population growth, labour was no longer scarce and lost its bargaining power. Governmental and especially international pressure supported the reversal of social services through privatisation and informalisation. The quality of these services and schemes generally declined after independence. Therefore, labour scarcity is a key condition for the provision of social services by concession companies.