Purpose - Africa's population is the second largest and fastest growing in the world after Asia, and this puts African governments under great stress in terms of increased public expenditure and is faced with a low revenue generation. Hence, the need for this study. The purpose of this paper is to examine the socio-economic determinants of public expenditure in Africa by assessing the influence of population age structure using a sample of the top ten most populous countries in Africa covering period of 1989 to 2018. Design/methodology/approach - The study employed panel fully modified ordinary least square (OLS) in estimating the relevant relationship between the variables in the model. The dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) model was also used to check the robustness of the fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) results. Findings - The findings revealed that the major population age structure that influences the growth of public expenditure in Africa are population ages (0–14) and population ages (15–64), but the former poses a stronger significant influence than the latter while population ages (65 and above) has a negative and insignificant influence. Also, in terms of other socio-economic factors, self-employment has a reducing and significant influence on public expenditure. GDP per capita has a negative and insignificant influence while foreign aid and unemployment rate has an increasing influence. Finally, inflation rate and control of corruption (CC) has a negative relationship with public expenditure. Social implications - The study argues that an increase in the young and working population will put enormous pressure on the government in the provision of more jobs and other public infrastructures such as health care and education. In the context of African economy with a low revenue generation, public expenditure will be low and the desperately poor masses will be denied of these public infrastructures. Originality/value - Several studies (Jibir and Aluthge, 2019; Tayeh and Mustafa, 2011; Okafor and Eiya, 2011; Obeng and Sakyi, 2017; Ofori-Abebrese, 2012) have investigated the determinants of public expenditure using total population as a variable. However, this study is unique as it focused on the influence of population age structure on public expenditure in Africa. Also, the study incorporated other socio-economic determinants of public expenditure such as self-employment, standard of living, inflation rate, unemployment rate, foreign aid and corruption in its analytical model. To the best of our knowledge, some of these variables have not been employed in previous studies.

中文翻译：

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非洲公共支出的社会经济决定因素：评估人口年龄结构的影响

目的-非洲的人口是仅次于亚洲的世界第二大，增长最快的国家，这使非洲各国政府在增加公共支出方面承受巨大压力，并且面临创收低的问题。因此，需要进行这项研究。本文的目的是通过使用1989年至2018年非洲人口最多的十个国家的样本来评估人口年龄结构的影响，从而研究非洲公共支出的社会经济决定因素。设计/方法论/方法-该研究采用面板完全修改的普通最小二乘（OLS）来估计模型中变量之间的相关关系。动态普通最小二乘（DOLS）模型也用于检查经过完全修改的普通最小二乘（FMOLS）结果的鲁棒性。研究结果-研究结果表明，影响非洲公共支出增长的主要人口年龄结构是人口年龄（0-14）和人口年龄（15-64），但前者比后者的人口影响更大年龄（65岁及以上）具有负面影响和微不足道的影响。此外，就其他社会经济因素而言，自营职业对公共支出的影响也越来越小。人均国内生产总值的影响是微不足道的，而对外援助和失业率的影响却越来越大。最后，通货膨胀率和控制腐败与公共支出之间存在负相关关系。社会影响-该研究认为，年轻人口和工作人口的增加将在提供更多就业机会和其他公共基础设施（如医疗保健和教育）方面给政府带来巨大压力。在非洲经济创收较低的情况下，公共支出将很低，而这些公共基础设施将使绝望的穷人无法获得生活。原创性/价值-几项研究（Jibir和Aluthge，2019; Tayeh和Mustafa，2011; Okafor和Eiya，2011; Obeng和Sakyi，2017; Ofori-Abebrese，2012）使用总人口作为变量研究了公共支出的决定因素。 。但是，这项研究是独特的，因为它侧重于人口年龄结构对非洲公共支出的影响。还，该研究在其分析模型中纳入了其他公共支出的社会经济决定因素，例如自营职业，生活水平，通货膨胀率，失业率，外援和腐败。据我们所知，这些变量中的一些在以前的研究中尚未使用。