Needed in Egypt: A Transformative Population Policy
by Tarek Shafey
A long-standing leader and modernizer in the Arab region, Egypt now faces stiff challenges, important among which is a population of 101 million that is growing fast at 2 million a year (2%). With an economy only moderate in income levels and growth, fast population growth is straining resources and infrastructure, and worsening economic and social problems. Egypt shares such challenges with many developing countries, and lessons learned there are widely applicable elsewhere, especially in fellow African, Arab, majority-Muslim, and even other countries, including some in South Asia and Latin America. A good and comprehensive population policy now needs to become a top national priority in Egypt.
Why Family Planning?
With 95% of Egypt’s people living on the 50,000km2 (5% of Egypt’s area), very fertile and densely populated Nile River Delta and Valley, crowded homes and congested urban traffic are features of many areas. Resources and infrastructure struggle to satisfy fast-growing demand, and as a result, Egypt imports much of its food and experiences housing, water, fuel and electricity shortages. Much fertile agricultural land is lost to population growth, and as in other developing countries, overpopulation affects the rural and urban working class, who tend to have larger families. High health care, education and child care costs strain many large families’ budgets, while state-provided health care and education’s availability and quality are strained and lessened by the fast-rising numbers. With over a million new young people seeking jobs per year, the youth face a jobless rate far higher than the national average, and often unfavorable employment terms. Prevalent child labor and juvenile delinquency are other social problems. Cultural and religious excuses are cited for overpopulation, but similar countries have harmoniously and successfully slowed their population growth and reaped the benefits. Overpopulation affects Egypt’s Muslims more, as the country’s 10% minority Christians (93% of them Coptic Orthodox) have higher education, income and employment levels and smaller families on average.
We explore the clear economic and social benefits of family planning. To start, population slowdown would ease all the supply pressures, economic difficulties and social problems outlined above and gain valuable time to successfully tackle them. Turning to religion, many Muslim Egyptian clerics wrongly claim that Islam categorically mandates large families and rapid population growth, although a form of birth control was practiced at the time of Islam’s Prophet Mohamed, who allowed it. According to Muslim scholars, if voluntary, not permanently sterilizing or physically harmful, then birth control is permissible. Modern clerics’ opposition is a real hurdle, as their opinion, especially communicated in Friday community prayer sermons to men, remains respected and widely followed by the working class. Egypt can and needs to persuade the clerics that is the not the population’s numbers but quality of their education, health, life and livelihoods that really matters, and if slower population is growth is shown to be in the national interest, then under Islamic law, the country’s civilian leadership has both the right and responsibility to pursue policies towards that end.
The poor working-age (15–64 years) percentages of Egypt’s too-young population (62%) and Japan’s too-old one (59%), contrast with the excellent percentages of South Korea (72%) and Costa Rica (70%). However, Costa Rica’s population pyramid shows that its favorable ratio is sustainable, unlike South Korea which will age dramatically by 2050. This is an important lesson for Egypt to decisively slow its population growth and improve its age structure, but also to nudge its birth rate upwards after 2050 to keep that structure favorable and growth-conducive. Globally, Egypt’s fast population growth rate is now only topped by most African and Arab, and some Asian, countries. Population slowdown directly quickens per capita income growth, eases family budget pressures, allows the fewer children better education and health care, and more women can work and be economically productive. With smaller families, more earned income is saved and, if well-channeled through the financial sector, this allows yet more business investment, growth and job creation. Egypt’s population in 2070 is projected at 190 million, and this ranges widely from a quite manageable 130 million in case of an effective population policy to a staggering and dangerous 230 million in case of a totally failed one. Notably, Egypt’s state plans to relocate 80 million of 165 million Egyptians outside the Nile Delta and Valley by 2050, but much better and less costly would be relocating 40 million of 130 million by 2070 to areas closer and more livable.
Effective Policies
Egypt needs to restore its Ministry of Population and Family Affairs, which would set up more family health centers to promote family planning and school education on population control, provide information, free pregnancy tests, checkups and other reproductive health-related, infant and child care services, and counseling including “Family Health” courses, outlined below, to both women and men. These centers would work closely with the Ministry of Health, and a strong and fast-impact start would be to make contraceptives free and easily available. Egypt also needs to intelligently steer its clerics to have them support and advocate family planning. Their strong influence is best demonstrated by Iran’s experience. Since its 1979 revolution, the regime has fully controlled the clerics. On ideological, old-school Islamic grounds, together they initially promoted large families and rapid population growth in the early-mid 1980’s, only to jointly reverse course, with striking results, after witnessing the population surge’s real, harmful effects. Fertility plunged from an average of 6.4 children per woman in 1984 to 4.8 in 1990, 2.2 in 2000 and 1.6 in 2015. For Egypt, where it is still around 3, that swift fall would be a tall order, but if the clerics are part of an all-round effort, the impressive population slowdowns of Muslim-majority Tunisia and Bangladesh would be possible to match.
Much-improved education, public health and awareness are the most important, long-term keys to resolving Egypt’s overpopulation and the related population issues covered below. Illiteracy is still high at over 20%, although falling and much lower for younger Egyptians. Education boosts career prospects, and raises awareness of population issues and the capacity for making sensible, modern and independent-minded, family-related decisions. Education gender gaps persist, though decreasing, in favor of males, but universal education is a worthy and important goal, towards which many steps can be taken. Education up to secondary or vocational degree level needs to be compulsory and the law enforced, with scaled subsidies that correlate with decreasing income levels, and competitive, full college scholarships based on both merit and need. Female college graduates, and male graduates not conscripted in military service, can be required to teach one-year illiteracy-eradicating classes, to young and adult citizens alike. Making marriage permits immediately conditional on passing literacy tests and attendance of family health courses, would strongly work against education deprivation, especially that faced by rural-area girls. And finally, with under-schooling higher among elder age groups, more attention to remedial schooling and adult education is also needed.
Public health improvement also matters, and modern subsidy reform, outlined below, can be used with great effect and influence in favor of enlightened family decisions. Despite progress made, infant, child and maternal mortality rates remain elevated. Substantial improvement here and awareness campaigns would change the old mindset that having many children is an insurance against these high mortality rates. The Ministry of Population could also conduct family health courses by qualified doctors, covering reproductive health, family planning, maternity, infant and child care, nutrition and hygiene, and the husband/father’s responsibilities. Making attendance for males and females, and key medical checkups, compulsory and conditional for marriage permits would also work very well.
High gender gaps, though lessening, exist in education and employment. Through laws and awareness campaigns, girls should be allowed a full education, then employment at least until marriage. Girls are also often married off prematurely and without their consent. While the minimum legal marriage age for a girl is 18, many families violate this law through trickery, and some fathers unilaterally have their girls engaged as early as age 13. A new law should set a girl’s minimum engagement age at 18, and require her and her mother’s official approval along with that of the father. Girls’ new minimum marriage age would be 19, with her and her mother’s consent officially required as well. This would go against conservative tradition, but would be wise and humane, in accordance with the real principles and spirit of Islam, and would protect girls from forced and unjust marriages in which they are often compelled to bear too many children.
Subsidy reform can be very influential. Food staples, electricity, fuel, public transportation, state schools and hospitals are now, wrongly, subsidized for all. A modern subsidy system pioneered by Brazil (“Bolsa Familia”) mandates market prices, while low-income families who commit to family planning, a full education and preventive health for their children would receive highly beneficial, direct, targeted cash support for moderate consumption and expenses. This needs to be capped at two existing children, which would be an excellent small-family incentive. For parents who would have their boys work or not educate their girls, strict child labor-prohibiting and education laws, and the prospective penalty of full subsidy removal would together be strong deterrents. To complement the public policies outlined above, full-spectrum awareness campaigns would help explain, justify and build support for them, but more importantly, since the number of children to have is a free decision made at the individual and family level, an effective campaign would need to persuade ordinary citizens that having only two children is in their own, best personal and family interest.
Other Population Issues
The Ministry of Population would need to spearhead reform efforts on two more issues: female genital mutilation (circumcision, or FGM) and polygamy. FGM is a painful ordeal that most working-class, Muslim Egyptian girls regrettably still endure under a pseudo-Islamic guise of protecting their chastity and morality. FGM is illegal and its incidence is gradually receding, but the ban is not actively enforced. FGM’s lasting physical and emotional harm need to be explained in family health courses, and the top religious officials need to rule publicly and unequivocally that FGM is a clear and cruel violation of Islam’s principles of compassion and individual accountability, and convince working-class Egyptians that a girl’s education, proper upbringing, and personal dignity, decency and modesty are the real keys to her virtuous and responsible behavior. Law enforcement, education and full-range awareness campaigns are all needed.
Some polygamy persists in Egypt, mostly among the working class. Although in Islam a man can marry up to 4 wives, polygamy was intended as a rare exception. Some men, however, abuse this privilege, and others enter murky, unofficial types of marriage. Polygamy in Egypt adds to overpopulation and causes financial and social family tensions, and this practice needs to be restricted and discouraged. All alternative, unofficial types of marriage should be banned, on national interest grounds, with the Islamic clerics’ consent. A man’s existing wife/wives should be allowed to file for divorce, and awarded full financial and legal rights including the home(s), should she/they prove that the husband has been negligent or unequal in financial support, physical presence or attention given to his wives or his children borne by her. Also effective would be to restrict the new, reformed subsidy system to include only two of the first wife’s children.
As the most populous and strategically located Arab country, Egypt now needs to and can restore its economic vitality and social harmony, and resume its longstanding role as a force for much-needed peace, stability, reform and modernization in the troubled but still promising Middle East and North Africa region.
