ann bernstein

Head of @CDEsouthafrica, leading South African think tank. State of the nation, democracy, development and thrillers.

[LSE School of Public Policy @LSEPublicPolicy]

🇿🇦 South Africa’s Government of National Unity has promised reform and growth, but major challenges remain.

Join @annbernsteinSA of @CDEsouthafrica at @LSEPublicPolicy to discuss the country's economic future.

📅 23 June
📍 LSE + online

Register: https://t.co/4BPrNLna7W

[Mteto Nyati @mteton]

China and India have lifted hundreds of millions of their citizens out of poverty through market-oriented economic reforms. Yet in our country, business is still too often treated as an enemy rather than a partner for development. Why can’t we learn from their success? #ProudlySA

[ann bernstein @annbernsteinSA]

@mteton

[Mteto Nyati @mteton]

China and India have lifted hundreds of millions of their citizens out of poverty through market-oriented economic reforms. Yet in our country, business is still too often treated as an enemy rather than a partner for development. Why can’t we learn from their success? #ProudlySA

[Centre for Development and Enterprise @CDEsouthafrica]

REMINDER TO RSVP | @AndresVelasco, Dean of Public Policy at LSE and former Chilean Minister of Finance, will be in conversation with @annbernsteinSA on how the London Consensus seeks to move development debates forward.
📅 Wednesday, 27 May 2026
⏰ 5–6pm (SAST)
Register here: https://t.co/DGiQe0nD9y

[Centre for Development and Enterprise @CDEsouthafrica]

#CDEConversations | Join us for a conversation with @AndresVelasco Professor of Public Policy at @LSEPublicPolicy and former Chilean Minister of Finance, in discussion with CDE executive director @annbernsteinSA.
They will discuss The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century and its implications for countries like South Africa.
📅Wednesday, 27 May 2026
⏰ 5–6pm (SAST)
Register: https://t.co/DGiQe0nD9y

[Mteto Nyati @mteton]

Eskom has issued a firm notice: it will reduce, interrupt or terminate electricity supply to key Johannesburg bulk points as City Power and CoJ arrears hit R5.2 billion. Enough is enough.

How did we, as a society, allow a major metro like Johannesburg to operate with such disregard for accountability?

It is a betrayal of the citizens we serve and the future we’re fighting to build. We must demand better. Integrity and responsibility cannot be optional in our cities.

Time to fix this. 🇿🇦
#AccountabilityNow

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

Smartphones are not the explanation for the recent decline in fertility. Instead, they are an accelerator of deeper forces already at work.

Let’s start with the facts. Fertility is falling almost everywhere: in rich, middle-income, and poor countries; in secular and religious countries; and in countries with high and low levels of gender equality.

The decline accelerated around 2014. So, no country-specific explanation will work unless you are willing to believe that 200 distinct country-specific explanations arrived at roughly the same time.

Smartphones look like the obvious candidate: the first iPhone was released in 2007, and global adoption has been astonishingly fast.

Economists understand the first major decline in fertility in advanced economies, from 6 or 7 children per woman throughout most of human history to about 1.8, that occurred between the early 1800s and roughly 1970, well before smartphones. The main drivers were a sharp fall in child mortality (effective fertility was rarely above 3 and often close to 2) and the shift from a low-skill, rural agrarian economy to a high-skill, urban industrial one. We have quantitative models that fit these facts well.

Country-specific factors mattered too, of course. Proximity to low-fertility neighbors accelerated Hungary’s decline, while fragmented landowning structures accelerated France’s. But these were second-order mechanisms.

This is also why most economists long considered Paul Ehrlich’s doom scenarios implausible. We forecast that fertility in middle- and low-income economies would follow the same path as in the rich, probably faster, because reductions in child mortality reached India or Africa at lower income levels (medical technology is nearly universal, and most gains come from handwashing and cheap antibiotics, not Mayo Clinic-level care). Much of what we see in Africa or parts of Latin America today is still that old story.

But in the 1980s, a new pattern appeared. Japan and Italy fell below 1.8, the level we had thought was the new floor. By 1990, Japan was at 1.54 and Italy at 1.36.

This second fertility decline began in Japan and Italy earlier than elsewhere, driven by country-specific factors, but the underlying dynamics were widespread: secularization, an education arms race, expensive housing, the dissolution of old social networks, and the shift to a service economy in which women’s bargaining power within the household is higher. The U.S. lagged because secularization came later, suburban housing remained relatively cheap, and African American fertility was still high. U.S. demographic patterns are exceptional and skew how academics (most of whom are in the U.S.) and the New York Times see the world.

My best guess is that, without smartphones, Italy’s 2025 fertility rate would be about 1.24 rather than 1.14. I doubt anyone will document an effect larger than 0.1-0.2. Italy was at 1.19 in 1995, not far from today’s 1.14. The TFR is cyclical due to tempo effects, so I do not read too much into the rise between 1995 and 2007 or the decline from 1.27 in 2019 to 1.14 today. The direct effect of smartphones is not zero, but it is not, by itself, that large.

Where social media, in general, and smartphones, in particular, matter is in the diffusion of social norms. What would have taken 25 years now happens in 10. Social media are not the cause of fertility decline; modernity is. But they are a very fast accelerator.

That is why social media are a major part of the story behind Guatemala (yes, Guatemala) going from 3.8 children per woman in 2005 to 1.9 in 2025. Without them, Guatemala would also have reached 1.9, just 20 years later.

Modernity, in its current form, is incompatible with replacement-level fertility. By modernity, I do not mean capitalism: fertility fell earlier and faster in socialist economies than in market economies. Socialist Hungary fell below replacement in 1960, and socialist Czechoslovakia in 1966 (both experienced small, short-lived baby booms in the mid-1970s). By modernity, I mean a society organized around rational, large-scale systems and formalized knowledge.

Countries will not converge to the same fertility rate. East Asia is likely stuck near 1, possibly below, given its unbalanced gender norms and toxic education systems. Latin America faces the same gender problem plus weak growth prospects, so I expect something around 1.2. Northern Europe has more egalitarian family structures and might hold near 1.5. The very religious societies are probably the only ones that will sustain 1.8.

All of this could change with AI or changes in population composition. We will see. But on the current evidence, deep sub-replacement fertility is the “new new normal.” Unless we reorganize our societies, better learn to handle it as best we can.

[Currency @currencynewsza]

🎙️ PODCAST | Has local politics reached its nadir? In this episode of ‘Listen UP’, @mark_barnes56 and @tim_cohen tackle the topic with @annbernsteinSA.

Click the 🔗 to listen in.

https://t.co/rj6MUeKfbD

[Standard Bank Business ZA @SB_BusinessZA]

Township SMEs are key to South Africa’s economic growth. The 2026 Standard Bank Kasi SME National Pitch Challenge is helping entrepreneurs access funding, mentorship, and market opportunities. Learn more: https://t.co/yZ9VyitFAM

KasiSMEsUMMIT2026 SBLovesSMEs💙

[SikonathiMantshantsh @SikonathiM]

How Zim businessman under R800m Hawks probe ended up on Ramaphosa chopper ride https://t.co/ZBukgG170a via @news24

[ann bernstein @annbernsteinSA]

Guess who was at Harvard discussing how mayors deliver results this week? Joburg’s mayor Dada Morero!!! https://t.co/Fm4R7uTzuu

[Centre for Development and Enterprise @CDEsouthafrica]

The proposed amendments to the BBBEE codes are recklessness piled on recklessness. They will narrow the beneficiaries of preferential procurement spending in the private sector, while strongly nudging ESD spending into a Transformation Fund whose parameters, mandate, governance and institutional architecture have not been publicly disclosed. https://t.co/lWS5djxuXy

[Centre for Development and Enterprise @CDEsouthafrica]

@annbernsteinSA | Proposed BBBEE shake-up is reckless and must be stopped.

CDE continues to call for a comprehensive, independent review of South Africa’s BBBEE policies to assess their effectiveness and costs. This should be led by an independent panel including economists, legal experts, business leaders, civil society representatives and, especially, black-owned enterprises affected by current mechanisms. https://t.co/lWS5djxuXy

[Centre for Development and Enterprise @CDEsouthafrica]

The aim of a comprehensive review of BBBEE must be to build a new consensus promoting inclusive growth, accountability and tangible benefits for black, and in particular disadvantaged, South Africans, writes @annbernsteinSA https://t.co/AQUYeJj9V3

[tylercowen @tylercowen]

My South Africa interview with Ann Bernstein: https://t.co/UQo7t1zAnn

[ann bernstein @annbernsteinSA]

Guess who was at Harvard discussing how mayors deliver results this week? Joburg’s mayor Dada Morero!!! https://t.co/Fm4R7uTzuu

[Centre for Development and Enterprise @CDEsouthafrica]

“What the country needs is a comprehensive, independent review of transformation policies focusing on B-BBEE’s effectiveness and costs. The goal: to build a consensus promoting inclusive growth, accountability and tangible benefits for black, and especially disadvantaged, South Africans.” - @annbernsteinsa https://t.co/B2QBOdNSkX

[Centre for Development and Enterprise @CDEsouthafrica]

“The current proposals for sweeping changes to the B-BBEE framework should be shelved until a comprehensive, independent review has been conducted and publicly debated. Transforming South Africa needs GNU leadership — not ANC policy alone," writes @annbernsteinSA. https://t.co/B2QBOdNSkX

[Gideon Rachman @gideonrachman]

Shocking death toll and a new war emerging in South Asia. But hardly anyone seems to have noticed. https://t.co/9AR7VNXlKn via @ft

[ann bernstein @annbernsteinSA]

@gwc.za

[Ground Work Collective (NPC) @gwc_za]

"What we're talking about is the South African project, which is how to build a society that's very different from the one we had 30 years ago, a society where everybody, wherever they live or whoever they are, has expanding opportunities to participate, to be successful, to fulfill themselves and uplift themselves and their communities. That's the challenge that faces all of us." @annbernsteinSA @News24