Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-412821-20160406222201/@comment-26154170-20160414011607

Indeed, industrialised countries in the early nineteenth century such as Japan and Korea had high fertility rates (around 4 births per woman) due to low urbanisation rates at the time (only a fifth of the total population living in urban areas). I think something like this could happen in the Congo, having a similar path to Korea until the mid-seventies where the fertility rate will level off at 3 births per woman or something.

And, China was not industrialised by 1970. The industrial sector made up a large part of its economy only because all the other economic sectors are small in relative to it. China in 1970 was very poor. Same for Nigeria. And South Africa is industrialised, but its fertility rate is pretty low for an African country (2.5 births per woman, slightly below the world average).