A somewhat unusual phenomenon is being monitored in Egypt. In the last recorded year, 2012, more than half a million new births were recorded compared to the year before.
What is going on, is not entirely clear, but the reality of skyrocketing births has some sociologist and politicians running to plan for the new citizens.
Egypt is in a midst of a deep recession brought on by three years of unrest and government change. Not to mention plummeting tourist revenue. And decades long cronyism and military rule.
The whoppin 40% increase in births from the year before, is skewing the already unusual demographics of the place completely off the curve. In Egypt almost 60% of the population is below 30 years old to begin with. In a country with very high unemployment, that spells trouble: big trouble.
That 40% surge follows a couple of prior years that already taliled much higher births than the years before.
This amounts to a population explosion, which in countries with solid economies could be a positive thing, but in one where the resources are dwindling and unemployment soaring, it is another nail in the coffin of a beleaguered economic and political picture.
This type of population surge is exactly what has brought Egypt to a civil war. A large number of unemployed youths is the fuel to discontent's fire. It is exactly what allowed general unease or simmering rebellions to become all out unrest and civil strife.
Which would mean that this new surge is a harbinger of what will happen 15 or so years down the line, when a new outsized number of eligible workers might find themselves without a job.
What is worse, the school system is already unfit and insufficient for the existing youth, and such a strong increase would seriously curtail the population's ability to obtain any education. In Egypt most classes count on average 40 students. In some places the number is as high as 60.
What is worse, is that university graduates are in even more difficulty in finding a job that their less educated counterparts. For those intellectuals, the answer is to either emigrate, or to agitate.
Egypt furthemore is a country that lives on the banks of the Nile. There is not a lot of Egypt that is inhabitable and resources are already greatly strained. Energy, wheat, fuel, and all major necessary goods are in short supply. The country, furthermore, is depleted of foreign currencies, so that its buying power is greatly diminished for those import good.
To curtail explosive population birth trends, the Mubarak regime had successfully implemented a population control program for decades. But as his regime faltered, and some muslims returned to more strict adherence of their faith, the numbers of birth suddenly spiked. Much of the spike can be directly blamed on Morsi's administration officially declaring that population control was off the table and not something that should concern the government at all.
The Muslim Brotherhood, and the more conservative Muslim portion of the population follow principles that lead them to have multiple children. The Mubarak policy on population control in fact, was seen very negatively by the Muslim Brotherhood, which deedmed it un-Islamic. It is long believed by Muslim conservatives, that the way to win the world to the Muslim faith is to procreate in large numbers. One can only harken to Arafat's words who asserted that the PLO's victory would come from the Muslim woman's womb.
Conservative values have made a comeback to Egypt in the past decade or so. And with it are returns to stricter observance of Koranic law.
To that, one can add the problem with accessing health care, during times of civil unrest, and the scarce availability of contraceptive both as a consequece of the unrest and probably as a willful policy by the Brotherhood while they were in power in the more recent years.
The Military rulers in place at the moment, and its spinoff after the elections, which will probably see someone like Al Sisi or someone affiliated with the military junta holding power, will probably reinstate the population control program. Although of a voluntary nature, adherence to the program is usually pretty widespread, with about 65% of women using contraceptives. The new administration hopes to make that number even higher.
Most of the new births is in rural areas, where coincidentallly people are more conservative religiously.
Either way, that's 81 million people living on only 8% of Egyptian soil, which is for the rest completely desertic. In Cairo alone, the population density is so staggering that in one square mile live almost 500,000.
The new administration is also planning an information and education campaign aimed at young girls, to both curtail child marriages, and improve knowledge of contraceptive and reproductive health.
However, if the government only continues to make population control a voluntary thing, in fear of offending religious sensibilities if it moved to make it mandatory, the problem might not be resolved, and in the future, further trouble, economic and in term of civil unrest could materialize. That raises the prospect of decades long civil unrest and instability.
Op-Ed
Source : The Guardian.
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