Overpopulation Hinders Egypt’s Development

The campaigns failed.

Egypt currently has the largest population in the Arab world at 89 million people, averaging a 1.6 percent yearly increase, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

“Overpopulation is when the economy is not growing faster than the rate of the population growth, so everyone’s share of the output of the economy would decrease which would reflect badly on the standard of living of everyone in the economy,” said Samer Atallah, assistant professor of economics.

In 1965, 14 years before Imam made his film, Egypt’s population stood at 32 million. In the 36 years since he made the popular comedy, the population has nearly tripled.

Nazek Nosseir, assistant professor of sociology, says that there used to be three main reasons for high fertility rates in the past century – sex preference, infant mortality, and child labor. She said that families preferred males, and used to have more than one in case one child dies as infant mortality rates were high.

Nosseir told The Caravan that the adequate number of children is two so they would replace both parents when they die in the future. That is called “replacement fertility rate.”

But Atallah believes that Egypt’s economy can be equipped to absorb high population growth but the key factor is allocating available resources. He says one of the local economy’s most inefficient uses of resources is in the labor sector.

Around 12.9 percent of those who are above 15 years old are unemployed.

Given that low-income groups traditionally lack the necessary education and skills to work in the formal sector, they seek employment in the informal sector in order to generate income.

This is not accounted for in the country’s GDP.

Atallah says that the government must ensure that it is providing its large population with adequate education to make them competitive in the global economy.

“Even the formal education system produces graduates that are not necessarily employable,” he said.

“If the government is not providing the necessary tools to turn this population into productive human capital then it’s losing its opportunity against other countries that are lacking population growth and human capital,” Atallah added.

If overpopulation is a fundamental challenge hindering Egypt’s potential economic growth then its byproduct – emigration – is increasingly defining the aspirations

of many youth in the country. Two-thirds of the Egyptian population is below the age of 29 according to the UNDP. On the other hand, most of the developed countries today like Western Europe, and Japan are facing the challenge of having an aging population.

“Resources must be allocated to the thing that has the highest return that is in my opinion is education because it ensures a sustainable development for the coming generations,” Atallah added.

But resource allocation may not be sufficient.

The Egyptian National Population policy maintains three crucial challenges to the country’s development.

It states that “Egypt has 1) a high rate of annual population growth, 2) an unbalanced spatial distribution of population, and 3) population characteristics that favor low levels of productivity”.

One of the reasons for the high birth rates is that low-income families are eager to have many children because they think that each child which will ultimately contribute to the family income.

Nosseir said that while migration to urban centers has increased, the traditions of rural areas have not diminished.

Many who move to Cairo or Alexandria, for example, continue to have a large number of children.

These children are then encouraged to skip school and find employment, usually as apprentices or delivery boys.

Nosseir believes that a child labor law which prohibits employment below the age of 15 could go a long way to discouraging families from having more children for fear of additional economic burden.

“Particularly now that infant death has declined, families will think twice,” Nosseir added putting great

emphasis on females’ education. “Research has shown us that education of mothers is the most important factor determining the number of children, and the education of children, much more than the education of fathers,” Nosseir stated.

Sabah Shehata, a housemaid, is a mother of five children. She said that she hopes that they will help her financially when they grow up. “I send them to school but I send them to work on holidays as well, so they would learn something that benefits them in the future,” Shehata added.

Suad Ahmed, who is married to a custodian of a posh building in Maadi, married when she was 14 and has since had 10 children. She and her husband encouraged all their children to attend school, but the girls were married off just before they finished high school.

Her sons finished high school and attended training colleges. She says that the family was able to grow thanks to the tips and handouts from the residents of the building her husband manages.

Egypt scored 0.662 on the Human Development Index (HDI) that measures the quality of health care, education, and income in a country – the figure is between zero and one. That puts Egypt in the category of medium human development which starts from 0.614 till 0.734.

Egypt has also moved from ranking 112 to 110 out of 118 in terms of human development according to the HDI.

But the challenges of overpopulation seem to have slipped from the national radar to be replaced by economic and political stability, particularly in the wake of the January 2011 uprising.

In 2014, President Abdel- Fattah El-Sisi acknowledged that overpopulation was a national problem and urged measures to bring it under control.