30th International Population Conference

• Might Africa's growing working-age population create opportunities for investment and economic growth?
• How has Ghana's increase in educational attainment played out in that country's labour market over time, especially for women?
• What are the implications of inequalities in access to paid leave for women in South Africa?
• And, why has decreasing schooling inequality not led to decreasing earnings inequality in South Africa?

These are important research questions that several ACEIR members and associates tried to answer in their presentations at the world’s largest international scientific conference on population and demography in Australia this year. The 30th International Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population was hosted by the Australian Population Association in Brisbane in July 2025. The event brings together researchers, policymakers and practitioners from different disciplines to present and discuss the latest research on contemporary population issues. 

The global labour market and the end of world population growth

It is estimated that, between 2025 and 2070, a billion more people of working-age will be added to the world's population – and these will almost all be located in Africa. This paper by Prof. Murray Leibbrandt (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit – SALDRU, University of Cape Town) and Emeritus Prof. David Lam (University of Michigan – UoM) looks at the demography of this working-age population and its implications for global labour markets. The authors consider the extent to which Africa’s status as the only region with a growing working-age population may create opportunities for investment and economic growth. They also look at the impact of factors such as the ageing of the working-age population, the rising education of African cohorts, urbanisation, and the challenge of shifting from informal to formal jobs in African economies. Read | Working paper

Disparities in access to paid leave and their implications for gender inequality: The case of South Africa

While access to paid leave is crucial for reducing health and economic inequalities, especially for women and low-income workers, there is little research on inequalities in access to paid leave and its determinants in developing countries. Dr Jacqueline Mosomi (independent researcher), Dr Muna Shifa (SALDRU), Dr Amy Raub and Distinguished Prof. Jody Heymann (WORLD Policy Analysis Center, University of California LA) address this gap by examining inequalities in access to paid leave in South Africa and the implications for gender inequality. Their findings underline the importance of better labour market and social safety net policy formulation and implementation - especially for women and Black Africans who are concentrated in industries that record the most violations in terms of access to paid leave and other labour regulations. Read

Why has decreasing schooling inequality not led to decreasing earnings inequality in South Africa

Inequality in school education has declined substantially in South Africa since the end of apartheid but the increase in years of schooling has not led to less earnings inequality. This paper by Emeritus Prof. David Lam (UoM), Prof. Murray Leibbrandt (SALDRU), Dr Arden Finn (The World Bank Group) and Dr Nicola Branson (SALDRU) explores this puzzle from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The authors discuss the theoretical relationship between schooling inequality and earnings inequality when earnings are a convex function of schooling. They also look at how earnings inequality is affected by changes in returns to schooling when returns increase at some levels of schooling and decrease at other levels. Read

Gendered trends in educational expansion, labour market dynamics, and wage returns in Ghana: Evidence from harmonised cross-sections

This paper by Dr Nicola Branson and Dr Emma Whitelaw (SALDRU) contributes to the limited understanding of how Ghana’s growth in educational attainment due to deliberate policies to expand access has played out in the labour market over time, especially for women. Using the country’s rich, nationally representative cross-sectional household survey and Census data, the researchers stacked and harmonised these independent cross sections to analyse educational attainment and labour market participation across birth cohorts by age and gender between 1987 and 2021. By comparing cohorts, they traced individuals educated under different educational systems over their lifetimes, thereby measuring the equilibrium change of the quantity–quality trade-offs as education expanded in Ghana. Read

Dr Whitelaw also chaired a conference session on demographic and spatial dimensions of poverty and inequality while Dr Shifa presided over a session on intersections of class, gender, and other inequalities and implications for well-being.