The two-story house in Nairobi, Kenya that New York Times reporters have been renting since the early 2000s had a few notable features when my family moved in three years ago: banana, guava and avocado trees. a thatched cottage in the garden, built by a former Times reporter. and a small library of books on Africa collected over several decades.
I dived in. Yellowed reference volumes such as “Africa South of the Sahara: 1996” recalled a pre-Wikipedia world. Biographies of the famous are interspersed with those of the forgotten. A handful of admirably obscure works, such as “Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527,” emerged completely untouched.
But the most common kind of book was one that purported to describe the state of Africa, usually in sweeping termsβand, even more dangerously, that attempted to predict its future. These books fell into two categories: In one, titles alluded to dysfunction and conflict, such as “Africa in Chaos.” On the other, the titles sounded optimistic, almost Panglossian. For example: “Africa is rising”.
The sparring topics suggested how difficult, even foolish, it was to make sweeping statements about Africa, a continent that often defied self-styled experts, usually foreigners.
It might seem strange, then, that my next big story idea was in danger of falling into the exact same trap.
It started with a single event. In 2022, I learned that the median age in Africa was 19 β far lower than on any other continent. The global median age was 30. In Europe and North America it was 41. In parts of East Asia, such as Japan, it was as high as 48.
I had an impressive stat. But how could it be translated into history?
My first impulse was to focus on 19-year-old Africans from a wide range of countries and circumstances, exploring their lives, fears and dreams as a way to describe the forces reshaping the continent. But this device would have drawbacks. At 19, most of us are still trying to figure out what we want out of life. Young Africans are no different.
I looked deeper. Examining databases published by Department of Population of the United Nationsβmassive spreadsheets stretching back to the 1950sβI found two data points that, at first, seemed to sit uncomfortably together.
It turned out that while Africa’s median age was the lowest of any continent, it was still rising: As recently as 1989, its median age was 16.
However, Africa’s population was aging at a much slower rate than other regions, largely because the continent had the highest birth rates in the world. So as populations shrank in Europe and East Asia, they continued to soar in Africa β so much so, in fact, that by 2050 Africa is expected to be home to a quarter of the world’s population and a third of people aged 15 up to 24.
It added to a period of astonishing change that would reshape not only Africa but the world.
I had a story.
Others, such as Edward Paice, director of the Africa Research Institute in London, had already spotted this trend. In 2021, he published ‘Youthquake’, a book detailing Africa’s youth wave. I spoke with him and other experts who were excited and worried about this major change.
At the Africa team’s annual meeting in Nairobi, other Times reporters shared their ideas about these changes and how they might do a series of stories.
However, it would be difficult. I was looking for straws in the wind of a demographic hurricane. But journalists do not easily turn to the crystal ball. We are more comfortable using history to inform the present. We are reluctant forecasters.
And demography, the science that shapes these predictions, has often been misused or misunderstood. For decades, Africans have borne the brunt of Western fears of overpopulation. ONE Time magazine cover from 1960, titled “The Population Explosion”, prominently featured a bare-breasted African woman holding a child. In 1994, author Robert D. Kaplan predicted that population growth in West Africa would lead to anarchy.
And yet population projections for 2050 were largely reliable, experts said. It would be foolish of me to ignore them. As I traveled across Africa over the next 18 months reporting, I found hints of the youth boom everywhere.
After a coup in Burkina Faso last year, I met a man in his 20s who had spent a decade bouncing from one West African country to another, working odd jobs β in gold mines, on farms and on trawlers. He was an embodiment of a generation that struggled to find consistent work.
In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, I choked back tear gas as young pro-democracy activists, many of them women, clashed violently with riot police during demonstrations – a sign of the new era of protest led by young Africans disillusioned with their old, often authoritarian, leaders.
And in Kenya, I met young people with ambition and intelligence, many of them running startups, who represented a side of young Africa that often fails to make the news: a restless energy fueled by ambition, innovation and an intoxicating sense of possibility.
Colleagues also found examples. Elian Peltier, a reporter for The Times in West Africa, took a taxi with a young rapper in Ivory Coast. Dionne Searcey, who wrote a book about the lives of women in West Africa, found an inspirational university student in Senegal. Vivian Yee, based in Egypt, spoke to a student outside a school in Cairo.
Hannah Reyes Morales, a freelance photographer, traveled to five countries, seeking out young people in college dormitories, fashion shows, religious ceremonies, and even horse races. The scenes of joy, tumult and strife he captured reflect this poignant moment of change.
The result was “Old World, Young Africa,” which was published online last month and printed in a special 40-page section. In the coming weeks, other Times reporters will publish more stories about the surprising effects of Africa’s youth boom.
What it will ultimately bring – explosion, disaster or something in between – is likely to vary between countries and regions.
As my small library shows, capturing all of Africa in one book or article is a difficult, if not impossible, task. Is demographics destiny? It depends who you ask.
But few doubt that era-defining change is underway on the continent β and our goal is to track the biggest changes, one at a time.