Does HIV/AIDS retard the pace of age structural transition in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of Botswana.

P. Sadasivan Nair, University of Botswana

Although there has been a notable decline in fertility in Botswana since 1971, there is evidence of increasing mortality due to HIV/AIDS in recent times. The demographic transition underway in the country is rather strange. The country has a relatively young age structure. However, the median age has increased from 15.7 years in 1971 to 20.1 years in 2001. The proportion of the economically age group is 58 percent which is likely to increase to 59.6 percent in 2011 and 62.1 percent in 2021. This brings in the so-called “window of opportunity”. There was reduction in the young population due to HIV/AIDS deaths and no increase of the old due to the decelerated cohort flows from middle to old ages since AIDS deaths are concentrated in the middle ages. The caveates, momentum effects and the demo-economic interactions are discussed in the paper.