article · South African Journal of Economics
A 2015 World Bank report highlighted that extreme poverty declined across all global regions except Sub-Saharan Africa. Addressing whether genetic factors account for this persistence, economic theories linking cross-country development variations to genetic diversity were tested specifically within Africa. This involved adapting the Out of Africa hypothesis into a Genetic Diversity hypothesis tailored for intra-continental assessment, informed by genomic findings that challenged earlier assumptions regarding migration linearity, geographic space, and diversity origins. The investigation found that historical relationships between developmental factors, mobility, and predicted diversity follow a U-shaped pattern, which contrasts with earlier global models. However, contemporary data demonstrate a hump-shaped link with ancestry-adjusted predicted diversity. Consequently, a comparative assessment focused exclusively inside Africa shows that poverty cannot be attributed to African genetics.
Understanding whether human diversity influences economic outcomes is essential for informing development policy. Debunking genetic determinism shifts the focus of international development agencies and African governments away from biological fatalism towards structural, historical, and institutional solutions. This clarifies that economic hardship across the continent stems from factors other than inherent genetic characteristics, providing a firmer foundation for anti-poverty interventions.
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Abstract A 2015 World Bank report on attainment of Millennium Development Goals concludes that the number of extremely poor has dropped substantially in all regions with the exception of Sub‐Saharan Africa. We assess if poverty is in the African gene by revisiting the findings of Ashraf and Galor and reformulating the “Out of Africa Hypothesis” into a “Genetic Diversity Hypothesis” for a “Within Africa Analysis.” We motivate this reformulation with five shortcomings largely drawn from the 2015 findings of the African Gerome Variation Project, notably: limitations in the conception of space, an African dummy in genetic diversity, linearity in migratory patterns, migratory origins and underpinnings of genetic diversity in Africa. Ashraf and Galor have concluded that cross‐country differences in development can be explained by genetic diversity in a Kuznets or inverted U‐shaped pattern. Our results from an exclusive African perspective partially confirm the underlying hypothesis in a contemporary context, but not in the historical analysis. From a historical context, the nexus is U‐shaped for migratory distance, mobility index and predicted diversity while for the contemporary analysis; it is hump shaped for ancestry‐adjusted predicted diversity. Hence from a within‐Africa comparative standpoint, poverty is not in the African gene.
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DOI: 10.1111/saje.12165
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