International Population Day

The United Nations just celebrated International Population Day (7/11/2010) and issued its annual demographic report. The report revealed that Egypt ranked number ten in terms of its population growth and fourteenth in terms of population density.

Recently, the Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Ahmad Natheef, noted that birth rates doubled in 2008 to reach two million new born. Furthermore, he said that Egypt’s population in 1979 was 40 million and in 2008 reached 80 million. He continued to elaborate that the government’s strategy is clearly to control the population growth by providing the necessary means to implement that policy and to convince parents to limit their number of children to two. However, the Minister of Health, Dr. Hatem Jebali, noted that the government has failed to reach its goal in terms of population growth.

The new government strategy of family planning and birth control is to achieve the 2.2 babies per family by the year 2017, which are 3 new born per family at the present time. (al masry al youm 9/12/10)

Family planning and birth control have a long history in Egypt. It began during the 1930s when the population size was 15,921.000 according to the 1937 census; however, more government emphasis was placed on family planning and birth control since the 1952 revolution.

During the past sixty years, every president from Nasser to Saddat and Mubarak made family planning and birth control the cornerstones of their policies. Regretfully, and despite government policy, Egypt’s population continues to grow and is expected to reach $125 million by the year 2030.

Even if the Egyptian government will succeed in limiting birth rate to two children per family, from a demographic theoretical point of view it will take nearly fifty years for Egypt population to stabilize that is where the birth rate will equal the death rate. The chances for this to happen are very slim.