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  • December 2012
  • Article
  • Journal of Economic History

Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965

By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
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Abstract

Recent literature on the historical determinants of African poverty has emphasized structural impediments to African growth, such as adverse geographical conditions, weak institutions, or ethnic heterogeneity. But has African poverty been a persistent historical phenomenon? This article checks such assumptions against the historical record. We push African income estimates back in time by presenting urban unskilled real wages for nine British African colonies (1880–1965). We find that African real wages were well above subsistence level and that they rose significantly over time. Moreover, in West Africa and Mauritius real wage levels were considerably higher than those in Asia.

Keywords

Living Standards; Real Wages; Labor Market; Colonial Institutions; Economic Growth; Wages; History; Africa

Citation

Frankema, Ewout, and Marlous van Waijenburg. "Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965." Journal of Economic History 72, no. 4 (December 2012): 895–926.
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About The Author

Marlous van Waijenburg

Business, Government and the International Economy
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • 2023
    • Journal of African History

    Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa

    By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
    • January 2023
    • African Affairs

    Inequality Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa from Precolonial Times to the Present

    By: Ewout Frankema, Michiel de Haas and Marlous van Waijenburg
    • 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Fiscal Development under Colonial and Sovereign Rule

    By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
More from the Authors
  • Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
  • Inequality Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa from Precolonial Times to the Present By: Ewout Frankema, Michiel de Haas and Marlous van Waijenburg
  • Fiscal Development under Colonial and Sovereign Rule By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
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