It may sound like a strange question. Many Westerners still have an image of Sub-Saharan Africa as an underdeveloped place where people live in huts and hunt with spears like in the early 20th century. But even if some tribes of hunter-gatherers survive in isolated parts of the continent, this is by and wide a bygone image of Africa. Nowadays you are more likely to see flashy new skyscrapers than wooden huts.
For example this is the 300m-high Pinnacle Tower in Nairobi, Kenya.
This is the skyline of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and Ethiopia is poor even by African standards (it ranks 33rd out of 54 countries for GDP per capita).
This is Luanda, Angola.
Here is Gaborone in Botswana.
Maputo, Mozambique.
I could continue like that, but you get the idea. What interests me in this thread is to compare the actual, measurable data relating to quality of life in African countries today and compare them with Western countries in the 1950s.
1) Child mortality rate
One of the best indicator that a country is becoming developed is the reduction in child mortality. I checked the present and historical data on Our World in Data. Here is the historical data for major Western countries between 1930 and 1960. I skipped the WWII years as there was either no data or it was higher than it should have been because of the war.
Now let's have a look at African countries today (2021 data).
Niger has the highest child mortality in Africa today. Yet it is already lower than Poland in 1950. As of 2021, only five African countries have worse child mortality rates than Spain in 1950. The United States had a rate of 3.7% in 1950, which is like Kenya today. As late as 1960 Germany still had a child mortality rate of 4.3%, which is like Congo in 2021 and worse than 13 African countries today. Almost every African country have less child mortality now than Central and Eastern Europe in the 1950s (when the baby boomer generation was born). Romania only fell under 4% in 1977 and under 3% in 1992!
2) GDP per capita
The most common measurement of economic development is the GDP per capita, ideally at purchasing power parity (PPP). Here is the historical data (at PPP) from Wikipedia for major European countries and the USA.
And here is the data for African countries in 2022 (also at PPP).
Following the Second World War, the United States was the richest country in the world and enjoyed the highest GDP per capita by a large margin (even well ahead of Canada and Australia, which didn't suffer more from WWII than the USA). Yet, 13 African countries are now richer than Americans in 1950. The Seychelles even outdo the US in 1973, before the first oil shock.
Even if we exclude North African countries, island countries and South Africa (which has a substantial White minority), there are still countries like Botswana and Gabon that have a higher GDP per capita now than any Western countries in the 1950s and any European countries until the mid to late 1960s.
Only the poorest African countries like Liberia, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic are still poorer now than Spain in 1950.
Put another way, back in 1950 Americans were as rich/poor as present-day Namibians, Britons were like Ghanans, the French like Nigerians, Germans like Senegalese, and Italians like Zambians. But that's just money. Obviously technology has evolved a lot since 1950 and even with the same income as Europeans in 1950, modern Africans have access to mobile phone, Internet, Netflix and plenty of other techs an services than were unimaginable in 1950 Europe or America.
3) Percentage of telephone owners
If we look at communications, even richer Western countries were rather underdeveloped in 1950 compared to present-day Africa.
As was often the case in the mid 20th century, the US was first worldwide by a wide margin with 37% of households with a telephone in 1937, 62% in 1950 and 78% in 1960 (source). It's hard to find data about other countries before 1960. This article in French states that only 8% of French households had a phone line in 1954 and 15% in 1968. This is ridiculously low. This article in German explains that only 14% of German households were equipped with a telephone in 1960. According to the statistics of the Italian government a mere 6% of Italian households had a phone in 1960. It reached 15% in 1973, 25% in 1982, and 40% in 1992.
Most African people bypassed landlines entirely and adopted mobile phones in the last 25 years. I found this detailed report on the mobile economy of Africa, which gives stats for all regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). There were 515 million mobile phone users is SSA in 2021, which represented 46% of the population. By 2025 50% of SS Africans will have a mobile phone subscription. This is in a continent where nearly half of the population is under 18 years old, which is to say that most adults have a mobile phone. About 60% of mobile phones in Africa are smartphones with full Internet connectivity. This is way more advanced that anything in any Western country until even the 1990s. When it comes to technology and communications, modern Africans are clearly in the 21st century and enjoy much better standards than Westerners in the mid or late 20th century.
4) Life expectancy
All this is well, but Africa is a disease-ridden place full of malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis, polio, diarrheal diseases and even ebola, so life expectancy must be short, right? Wrong. That's once again a rather outdated view of the continent. Polio has been completely eliminated. Most people are vaccinated against the worst diseases and malaria, for which there is no 100% effective vaccine, is receding fast.
Let's once again compare with the situation in the West in the middle of the 20th century. Between 1930 and 1960 Australians had the highest life expectancy (well actually overtaken by Switzerland and the UK from 1954).
Here is the life expectancy of Sub-Saharan African countries in 2022.
The average life expectancy for all Africa stood at 64.11 years in 2022, which is similar to the European average in 1950. Africans have come a long way as in 1930 the average life expectancy in Africa was about 28 years! It has more than doubled since then.
As you can see, in the 1930s life expectancy in Russia and Spain was way worse than in the worst African countries today. Even Italian, French, German, British and American people in 1930 could hope to live until 55 to 60 years old in average, which is like the bottom 10 countries in Africa today. So most Africans today undeniably live several years longer than Westerners in 1930.
By 1950 life expectancy in Western Europe and the USA had risen to between 62 and 69 years old, which is the average for Africa today.
In the richer part of the Western world people lived until 69 or 70 years old in 1960, which is the same as in Rwanda today (yes, the country that suffered a terrible genocide in 1994, only a generation ago).
In 1960, Romanians lived 66 years, Serbians 64 years and Albanians 54 years - all less long than Ethiopians and Eritreans today! In fact, only the Central African Republic has a lower life expectancy today than Albania in 1960. Now Albanians can hope to live to 79 years old. Things can change quickly (and they do).
Life expectancy is rising so fast in Africa that places like the Seychelles, Mauritius and Cabo Verde are already close to the US and have overtaken European countries like Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania and Latvia.
Conclusion
Africa is far from being homogeneous in its development. There are huge gaps between the richer and poorer countries. But however we look at it, all indicators show that life is probably better today in places like Botswana, Gabon and maybe even Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya and Senegal than it was in Western countries in 1950 and often even throughout the 1950s. Life in these countries is undeniably better than in the former Communist bloc until the 1960s or even 70s or 80s. Small African island countries like the Seychelles, Mauritius, Cabo Verde or Sao Tome & Principe all rank fairly well worldwide even compared to Eastern Europe or Latin America.
For example this is the 300m-high Pinnacle Tower in Nairobi, Kenya.
This is the skyline of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and Ethiopia is poor even by African standards (it ranks 33rd out of 54 countries for GDP per capita).
This is Luanda, Angola.
Here is Gaborone in Botswana.
Maputo, Mozambique.
I could continue like that, but you get the idea. What interests me in this thread is to compare the actual, measurable data relating to quality of life in African countries today and compare them with Western countries in the 1950s.
1) Child mortality rate
One of the best indicator that a country is becoming developed is the reduction in child mortality. I checked the present and historical data on Our World in Data. Here is the historical data for major Western countries between 1930 and 1960. I skipped the WWII years as there was either no data or it was higher than it should have been because of the war.
| Country | 1930 | 1935 | 1950 | 1960 |
| Romania | 28.6% | 31.2% | 18.1% | 8.7% |
| Poland | 23.0% | 20.0% | 11.9% | 6.5% |
| Spain | 21.6% | 17.2% | 10.3% | 5.5% |
| Italy | 16.6% | 15.1% | 8.9% | 5.2% |
| Germany | 12.2% | 14.70% | 4.3% | |
| USA | 7.5% | 3.7% | 3.0% | |
| France | 10.9% | 9.2% | 5.7% | 2.8% |
| UK | 8.9% | 8.1% | 3.8% | 2.7% |
| Australia | 6.4% | 5.4% | 3.2% | 2.5% |
Now let's have a look at African countries today (2021 data).
| Niger | 11.5% |
| Somalia | 11.2% |
| Nigeria | 11.1% |
| Chad | 10.7% |
| Sierra Leone | 10.5% |
| Central African Republic | 10.0% |
| Guinea | 9.9% |
| South Sudan | 9.9% |
| Mali | 9.7% |
| Benin | 8.4% |
| Burkina Faso | 8.3% |
| Democratic Republic of Congo | 7.9% |
| Equatorial Guinea | 7.7% |
| Liberia | 7.6% |
| Cote d'Ivoire | 7.5% |
| Guinea-Bissau | 7.4% |
| Lesotho | 7.3% |
| Cameroon | 7.0% |
| Mozambique | 7.0% |
| Angola | 6.9% |
| Madagascar | 6.6% |
| Togo | 6.3% |
| Haiti | 5.9% |
| Zambia | 5.8% |
| Sudan | 5.5% |
| Djibouti | 5.4% |
| Eswatini | 5.3% |
| Burundi | 5.3% |
| Comoros | 5.0% |
| Zimbabwe | 5.0% |
| Gambia | 4.8% |
| Tanzania | 4.7% |
| Ethiopia | 4.7% |
| Ghana | 4.4% |
| Congo | 4.3% |
| Uganda | 4.2% |
| Malawi | 4.2% |
| Mauritania | 4.0% |
| Gabon | 4.0% |
| Rwanda | 3.9% |
| Namibia | 3.9% |
| Senegal | 3.9% |
| Eritrea | 3.8% |
| Kenya | 3.7% |
| Botswana | 3.5% |
| South Africa | 3.3% |
| Sao Tome and Principe | 1.5% |
| Cape Verde | 1.4% |
Niger has the highest child mortality in Africa today. Yet it is already lower than Poland in 1950. As of 2021, only five African countries have worse child mortality rates than Spain in 1950. The United States had a rate of 3.7% in 1950, which is like Kenya today. As late as 1960 Germany still had a child mortality rate of 4.3%, which is like Congo in 2021 and worse than 13 African countries today. Almost every African country have less child mortality now than Central and Eastern Europe in the 1950s (when the baby boomer generation was born). Romania only fell under 4% in 1977 and under 3% in 1992!
2) GDP per capita
The most common measurement of economic development is the GDP per capita, ideally at purchasing power parity (PPP). Here is the historical data (at PPP) from Wikipedia for major European countries and the USA.
| Country | 1950 | 1960 | 1973 |
| USA | $9,561 | $18,057 | $26,602 |
| France | $5,271 | $11,792 | $20,441 |
| UK | $6,939 | $13,780 | $19,168 |
| Germany | $3,881 | $12,282 | $19,074 |
| Italy | $3,502 | $9,430 | $16,950 |
| Spain | $2,189 | $5,037 | $11,638 |
| ex-USSR | $2,841 | $6,288 | $9,658 |
And here is the data for African countries in 2022 (also at PPP).
| 29,837 |
| 23,356 |
| 22,240 |
| 19,287 |
| 18,127 |
| 15,597 |
| 14,420 |
| 13,715 |
| 13,316 |
| 11,594 |
| 10,041 |
| 9,815 |
| 9,805 |
| 7,740 |
| 7,360 |
| 6,500 |
| 6,178 |
| 5,939 |
| 5,925 |
| 5,591 |
| 5,459 |
| 4,445 |
| 4,217 |
| 4,064 |
| 3,768 |
| 3,767 |
| 3,623 |
| 3,616 |
| 3,284 |
| 2,932 |
| 2,878 |
| 2,682 |
| 2,599 |
| 2,494 |
| 2,461 |
| 2,447 |
| 2,444 |
| 2,433 |
| 2,397 |
| 2,380 |
| 2,057 |
| 1,816 |
| 1,658 |
| 1,635 |
| 1,625 |
| 1,590 |
| 1,552 |
| 1,342 |
| 1,309 |
| 1,302 |
| 1,234 |
| 1,218 |
| 1,020 |
| 793 |
Following the Second World War, the United States was the richest country in the world and enjoyed the highest GDP per capita by a large margin (even well ahead of Canada and Australia, which didn't suffer more from WWII than the USA). Yet, 13 African countries are now richer than Americans in 1950. The Seychelles even outdo the US in 1973, before the first oil shock.
Even if we exclude North African countries, island countries and South Africa (which has a substantial White minority), there are still countries like Botswana and Gabon that have a higher GDP per capita now than any Western countries in the 1950s and any European countries until the mid to late 1960s.
Only the poorest African countries like Liberia, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic are still poorer now than Spain in 1950.
Put another way, back in 1950 Americans were as rich/poor as present-day Namibians, Britons were like Ghanans, the French like Nigerians, Germans like Senegalese, and Italians like Zambians. But that's just money. Obviously technology has evolved a lot since 1950 and even with the same income as Europeans in 1950, modern Africans have access to mobile phone, Internet, Netflix and plenty of other techs an services than were unimaginable in 1950 Europe or America.
3) Percentage of telephone owners
If we look at communications, even richer Western countries were rather underdeveloped in 1950 compared to present-day Africa.
As was often the case in the mid 20th century, the US was first worldwide by a wide margin with 37% of households with a telephone in 1937, 62% in 1950 and 78% in 1960 (source). It's hard to find data about other countries before 1960. This article in French states that only 8% of French households had a phone line in 1954 and 15% in 1968. This is ridiculously low. This article in German explains that only 14% of German households were equipped with a telephone in 1960. According to the statistics of the Italian government a mere 6% of Italian households had a phone in 1960. It reached 15% in 1973, 25% in 1982, and 40% in 1992.
Most African people bypassed landlines entirely and adopted mobile phones in the last 25 years. I found this detailed report on the mobile economy of Africa, which gives stats for all regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). There were 515 million mobile phone users is SSA in 2021, which represented 46% of the population. By 2025 50% of SS Africans will have a mobile phone subscription. This is in a continent where nearly half of the population is under 18 years old, which is to say that most adults have a mobile phone. About 60% of mobile phones in Africa are smartphones with full Internet connectivity. This is way more advanced that anything in any Western country until even the 1990s. When it comes to technology and communications, modern Africans are clearly in the 21st century and enjoy much better standards than Westerners in the mid or late 20th century.
4) Life expectancy
All this is well, but Africa is a disease-ridden place full of malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis, polio, diarrheal diseases and even ebola, so life expectancy must be short, right? Wrong. That's once again a rather outdated view of the continent. Polio has been completely eliminated. Most people are vaccinated against the worst diseases and malaria, for which there is no 100% effective vaccine, is receding fast.
Let's once again compare with the situation in the West in the middle of the 20th century. Between 1930 and 1960 Australians had the highest life expectancy (well actually overtaken by Switzerland and the UK from 1954).
| Country | 1930 | 1935 | 1950 | 1960 |
| Australia | 64.9 | 65.0 | 69.0 | 71.0 |
| UK | 60.8 | 62.0 | 68.6 | 70.9 |
| France | 56.8 | 58.3 | 66.4 | 70.4 |
| USA | 59.6 | 60.9 | 68.1 | 69.8 |
| Germany | 61.5 | 66.8 | 69.2 | |
| Italy | 55.2 | 56.2 | 65.7 | 69.2 |
| Spain | 49.3 | 52.6 | 61.8 | 69.2 |
| Russia | 36.5 | 39.6 | 57.2 | 68.3 |
| Poland | 59.1 | 67.8 | ||
| Romania | 62.2 | 66.0 |
Here is the life expectancy of Sub-Saharan African countries in 2022.
| Mauritius | 75 |
| Seychelles | 73.4 |
| Cabo Verde | 73 |
| Sao Tome and Principe | 70.4 |
| Botswana | 69.6 |
| Rwanda | 69 |
| Senegal | 67.9 |
| Djibouti | 67.1 |
| Madagascar | 67 |
| Kenya | 66.7 |
| Ethiopia | 66.6 |
| Gabon | 66.5 |
| Eritrea | 66.3 |
| Tanzania | 65.5 |
| Sudan | 65.3 |
| Mauritania | 64.9 |
| Congo, Rep. | 64.6 |
| Comoros | 64.3 |
| Malawi | 64.3 |
| Ghana | 64.1 |
| South Africa | 64.1 |
| Liberia | 64.1 |
| Zambia | 63.9 |
| Namibia | 63.7 |
| Uganda | 63.4 |
| Niger | 62.4 |
| Gambia | 62.1 |
| Benin | 61.8 |
| Burundi | 61.6 |
| Burkina Faso | 61.6 |
| Guinea | 61.6 |
| Zimbabwe | 61.5 |
| Angola | 61.2 |
| Togo | 61 |
| Mozambique | 60.9 |
| DR Congo | 60.7 |
| Eswatini | 60.2 |
| Cameroon | 59.3 |
| Mali | 59.3 |
| Equatorial Guinea | 58.7 |
| Guinea-Bissau | 58.3 |
| South Sudan | 57.9 |
| Cote d'Ivoire | 57.8 |
| Somalia | 57.4 |
| Sierra Leone | 54.7 |
| Nigeria | 54.7 |
| Lesotho | 54.3 |
| Chad | 54.2 |
| Central African Republic | 53.3 |
The average life expectancy for all Africa stood at 64.11 years in 2022, which is similar to the European average in 1950. Africans have come a long way as in 1930 the average life expectancy in Africa was about 28 years! It has more than doubled since then.
As you can see, in the 1930s life expectancy in Russia and Spain was way worse than in the worst African countries today. Even Italian, French, German, British and American people in 1930 could hope to live until 55 to 60 years old in average, which is like the bottom 10 countries in Africa today. So most Africans today undeniably live several years longer than Westerners in 1930.
By 1950 life expectancy in Western Europe and the USA had risen to between 62 and 69 years old, which is the average for Africa today.
In the richer part of the Western world people lived until 69 or 70 years old in 1960, which is the same as in Rwanda today (yes, the country that suffered a terrible genocide in 1994, only a generation ago).
In 1960, Romanians lived 66 years, Serbians 64 years and Albanians 54 years - all less long than Ethiopians and Eritreans today! In fact, only the Central African Republic has a lower life expectancy today than Albania in 1960. Now Albanians can hope to live to 79 years old. Things can change quickly (and they do).
Life expectancy is rising so fast in Africa that places like the Seychelles, Mauritius and Cabo Verde are already close to the US and have overtaken European countries like Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania and Latvia.
Conclusion
Africa is far from being homogeneous in its development. There are huge gaps between the richer and poorer countries. But however we look at it, all indicators show that life is probably better today in places like Botswana, Gabon and maybe even Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya and Senegal than it was in Western countries in 1950 and often even throughout the 1950s. Life in these countries is undeniably better than in the former Communist bloc until the 1960s or even 70s or 80s. Small African island countries like the Seychelles, Mauritius, Cabo Verde or Sao Tome & Principe all rank fairly well worldwide even compared to Eastern Europe or Latin America.
Last edited:
