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Page added on December 17, 2013
Rapid Population Growth Imperils Egypt
The world’s population broke the 7 billion person barrier in 2011 and is projected to increase by 40 percent in the coming forty years. Population growth averages vary among the world’s nations, with the populations of developed nations expected to increase by just 10 percent, and the greater part of population growth expected to come from developing nations, especially the least developed, where population is expected to double in the coming four decades.
So what about Egypt’s population outlook? Egyptian census data shows that in 1948, Egypt’s population reached nearly twenty million, added another twenty million by 1975, twenty million more by 1994, with the populace reaching sixty million. Another twenty million over the next seventeen years means eighty million Egyptians by 2011. Egyptians needed thousands of years to reach the first twenty million, before managing to double several times in a few years, without creating a concomitant increase in agricultural land or available water to ensure securing the necessities of life. They also failed to achieve human development and the quality of life achieved by other developing nations.
The United Nations’ population department issues periodical projections for the world’s nations—based on different scenarios, according to those nations’ potential fertility and mortality rates in the coming years. The latest study indicates that even if Egypt follows a low fertility scenario, the population will continue to grow reaching 100 million by 2036, then hitting 105 million by 2050 and settling at that level.
If, however, fertility rates are high, Egypt will break 100 million by 2025, and reach 140 million by the year 2050— a scenario that can be described as the “national suicide.”
If the reader should wonder whether Egypt is likely to have to the low or high birth rate, he will find a shocking answer. The latest figures from the last three years indicate that current birth rates go beyond the high fertility scenario prepared by the United Nations’ population department. That is to say that the continuation of current birth rates will take Egypt to a population of 100 million before 2025, and if Egyptians continue to adopt the prevailing reproductive values in the coming decades, it is not inconceivable that the scenario of national suicide be realized faster than we imagine.
Worthy of note is the fact that the estimates put forth by United Nations’ population department indicate that population growth in Egypt exceeds Turkey and Iran, even though the population of those two nations was equal to Egypt’s at the beginning of the millennium.
If we look at vital statistics in Egypt, we find that the number of births in the 1990’s was approximately 1.6 million on average. This annual average increased to approximately 1.8 million newborns in the first decade of the twenty-first century, with the last three years indicating an unprecedented increase. Breaking the two-million-newborn barrier in 2008, the rate reached 2.4 million newborns in 2011, and 2.6 million in 2012 according to data published by Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics.
To evaluate the level of population growth that has occurred in Egypt relative to other nations, it is important to note that in 1950, the number of newborns in Egypt equaled that of Italy, and by 1977 the number of newborns in Egypt had come to equal that of Italy and France combined. By the year 2000 it came to equal the combined total of Italy, France and Spain, and the number of newborns in Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom by 2012. These facts raise many questions and conclusions, perhaps the most important of which is the resources Egypt can allocate to educate the 2.6 million newborns when they reach schooling age, and the resources that will be allocated by the aforementioned four nations for the same number of students, and in turn, the return that we expect in the future in light of competencies, knowledge, skills and attitude pre-requisites to survive in an increasing competitive global environment.
The relative fertility access in Egypt is not confined only to comparing Egypt to European countries. It applies as well when comparing Egypt to other developing countries. For example, birthrates in Egypt exceed those in Indonesia, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mexico, Brazil, Bangladesh and Vietnam, not to mention India and China. With such differentials the gap in quality of life is likely to widen; not only that between Egypt and developed nations, but also between Egypt and other developing countries that have managed to achieve higher economic growth and lower population growth rates.
The aforementioned numbers are hard to ignore, but will not likely resonate in Egypt—the current political scene does not pay much mind to planning for the future, or to thinking scientifically about how to build it and deal with its challenges. But it is a patriotic duty to put the Egyptian population program at the top of the priority list. Only then would there be hope for a better future for our children and grandchildren. Otherwise, collective suicide is the only available scenario.
Magued Osman is the CEO and managing director of the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research, Baseera. This article originally appeared in Al-Shorouk.
9 Comments on "Rapid Population Growth Imperils Egypt"
dsula on Tue, 17th Dec 2013 7:52 pm
Come on guys. What’s the problem? There’s always stupid Europe and stupid north America. They will gladly import any excess population the 3rd world shit holes create. Especially if they are muslim. GO EUROPE, GO AMERIC!
BillT on Wed, 18th Dec 2013 2:19 am
BTW: “… Researcher Walid Shoebat, a native Arabic-speaker and a former Palestinian Liberation Organization operative, has reported on his blog credible news sources in Egypt have reported in Arabic that criminal charges brought against Hillary Clinton and Morsi’s wife….”
If true, this is an interesting twist in events. We shall see.
http://beforeitsnews.com/politics/2013/12/sudden-threat-endangers-hillarys-2016-run-2579884.html
DC on Wed, 18th Dec 2013 8:39 am
We went over this issue, what a month or two ago?
Egypt now has a permanent 50% grain deficit that has come from ‘somewhere else’. That is, the rest of the world. I dont see that % getting any better as they population keeps swelling.
Egypt also has a permanent energy deficit as well. Neighbouring states are sending Egypt oil welfare now too. Like the food situation, Egypt inst about to become a net exporter of energy anytime soon(ok never).
Now, since the number of grain-exporting nations, never large to begin with, is not going to grow, it will decrease actually in the years ahead. A similar situation exists with oil of course. Have Egyptians ‘done the math’ on what that means for the future? I doubt it, but then again, stupid N. America and stupid Europe havent either.
Arthur on Wed, 18th Dec 2013 1:07 pm
There’s always stupid Europe and stupid north America. They will gladly import any excess population the 3rd world shit holes create.
dsula, continental Europe is now effectively sealed off and will not commit auto-sociocide. Greece has completed it’s fence, subsidized by the EU and Bulgaria is busy completing their fence. Even Syrians, real refugees, are not let in, not even after protests of that arm of the US State Department aka Amnesty International:
amnesty . org/en/news/fortress-europe-syrian-refugee-shame-exposed-2013-12-11
The still Atlantic-oriented European political class is very scared of it’s own population and has seen what happened to Greece, where a substantial portion of the population has turned to the ‘extreme right’ in reaction to developments there (as if giving your country away is not ‘extreme’). The Greeks got upset about the financial implosion and EU-imposed measures (nevertheless the Greeks in large majority desperately want to remain in the EU and euro), but even more about the large number of predominantly Egyptians and Afghans in Athens. Some reports:
euobserver.com/fortress-eu/118439
And here a report of not exactly my political friends, that is probably not entirely inaccurate about the operation of Frontex, the clubs that guards the European borders with heavy-handed measures:
wsws . org/en/articles/2013/10/28/fron-o28.html
Frontex can monitor every little ship from space and intercept it. Only the rare boats that actually succeed in making it to Lampedusa reach the news headlines.
Standard procedure of the African invaders is to sink their own boats near the coast of Lampedusa and blackmail the Italians with their humanitarianism. There is strong suspicion that in several cases the invaders on purpose were not ‘rescued’ and drowned.
Europe (except maybe fools like Sweden and Britain, the latter of which is the only European country I actually hope will turn into an impotent third world country, and London is already majority non-British…
blogs . telegraph . co . uk/news/edwest/100084274/london-is-no-longer-an-english-city-says-john-cleese-is-he-right/
…) is not going to give itself away to third world invaders like the Egyptians mentioned in the article and will fight. Their overpopulation is home-made and their problem. Let Allah intervene for a change and save his flock.
Kenz300 on Wed, 18th Dec 2013 2:37 pm
“Rapid Population Growth Imperils Egypt”
Maybe rapid population growth imperils the world.
Food crisis, water crisis, employment crisis, declining fish stocks crisis and an over population crisis……
Over population makes every other problem harder to solve.
The worlds poorest people are having the most children. They have not figured out the connection between their poverty and family size.
Access to family planning services needs to be available to all that want it.
If you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.
GregT on Wed, 18th Dec 2013 7:16 pm
I find it very interesting, that in a time when we are ALL facing global crises of epic proportions, instead of uniting together to come up with solutions, we continue to pursue the very things that caused the problems to begin with, and all stand around pointing fingers at everybody else instead, as the cause.
What is coming, is coming to us all. Wasting precious time blaming others for all of our problems, will do nothing to solve them, it will only make the situation much, much, worse.
It really is no wonder, as to why we are facing so many difficulties. Mankind is incapable of getting along, and incapable of creating an equal and just society.
We had our chance, and we blew it. The four horsemen are getting saddled up.
mike on Wed, 18th Dec 2013 7:55 pm
“There’s always ……… stupid north America. They will gladly import any excess population the 3rd world shit holes create.” dsula!
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Yo dsula – you gonna give th’ole statue of liberty back to the cheese eating frenchies?
“london-is-no-longer-an-english-city-says-john-cleese-is-he-right/” – Arthur
And Los Angeles is a Mexican city again. And Rotterdam is no longer a Dutch city (Indonesians). And Paris is no longer a French city. (Algero-Senegalese). And Hamburg is a suburb of Istanbul……
Arthur on Wed, 18th Dec 2013 10:23 pm
Nice poem mike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lazarus
I am sure that you know which detail does not escape my attention. After all, you are a fast learner.
It won’t be long before in Ellis Island a different plate will be mounted on top of the old one, for people embarking for Europe. I am not going to compete with Emma here, but the gist of the message could be:
“Give me your vital, your strong, your shining,
Your few, yearning for opportunities to unleash your talent on,
yearning to be subjects again of Imperium Europa”
PrestonSturges on Wed, 18th Dec 2013 10:37 pm
If you look at a population density map of Egypt, everyone lives near Nile and the average population density is similar to an older American suburb. If fundamentalists take over and the inevitable failure of water, fuel, and power occurs, millions would die.