Between Aspiration and Reality: The Effect of the French Colonial Legacy on Old-Age Pension Coverage in Africa

Abstract

When implementing their first old-age pensions after independence, all former French colonies opted for a social insurance design, following the role model of their colonial power (Schmitt, Social Security Development and the Colonial Legacy. World Development 70: 2015, 332–342). But to what extent did the French colonial legacy also affect other dimensions of old-age protection programmes in Africa? This chapter shows that most Francophone African countries used the broad definition of a wage worker enshrined in the colonial “Labour Code for Overseas Territories” from 1952 to define the group of pension beneficiaries. This definition was especially chosen in aspiration of industrialisation. However, it did not correspond with the socio-economic reality of most of these countries. Still today, the number of wage workers in former French colonies is low, hampering a broader coverage of pension systems.