It is imperative to rein in population growth to sustain economic development in the long term. The Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) revealed last week that population topped 103 million people, compared to 102 million on July 5, 2021.
Alarmingly, the population grew by one million people within 232 days. Such a rate is forecast to increase Egypt’s population to 124 million people by 2032, according to CAPMAS data.
Egypt is the most populous Arab country, and ranks third in Africa. It is the 14th largest country in the world in terms of population. Definitely, growing population in Egypt has reached alarming levels, posing a major threat to the nation’s ambitious plans for sustainable development in the 21st century.
Overpopulation will add more economic burdens for the government, which should speed up growth to meet the annual increase in population. From an macroeconomic perspective, reining in birthrate is the door to combat poverty in the medium and long terms.
Economic repercussions
Basically, overpopulation engulfs economic growth, increases unemployment rate, especially among fresh entrants on the labour market. This requires higher economic growth and more investment to create jobs to meet growing labour supply.
Overpopulation scales up state expenses on public services, especially health, education and transportation. Moreover, its direct impact would be on prices of commodities as higher demand stokes waves of price hikes on the local market.
Most importantly, the citizens will not feel the effects of economic development and economic growth.
Overpopulation adds more pressure on the state’s services. At public schools, classrooms are overcrowded due to uncontrollable birthrates, especially in Upper Egypt.
Egypt’s population growth rate rose from 2.04 per cent between 1996 and 2006 to 2.56 per cent annually between 2006 and 2016, according to CAPMAS.
Strategy and treatment
The governorates of Assiut, Minya, Qena, Sohag and Beni Suef recorded the highest birthrates in 2021 at 26.4, 26, 25.6, 25.4 and 23.7 per 1,000 population, respectively, according to CAPMAS data.
The governorates of Port Said, Damietta, Suez, Daqahlia, and Qalyubia posted the lowest birthrates in 2021, at 14.2,18, 18.1, 18.2 and 18.2 per 1,000 population, respectively. Therefore, it is a must to launch more awareness campaigns focused on the importance of birth control, especially in Upper Egypt.
Driven by the need to economically and socially tackle the nagging problem, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi launched in 2014 the “2015-2030 Population Strategy” to rein in the birthrate and fix the nation’s uneven demographic distribution.
Egyptians live on less than 10 per cent of the country’s total area, creating daily traffic and congestion in most of urban districts nationwide, according to CAPMAS.
From a socio-economic perspective, the rate of population growth should be commensurate with the rate of economic growth in a way that ensures the citizens to feel improvement of living standards.
Lower population growth rates will ensure that the state can work properly to lure more foreign and local investments to increase companies and factories to increase jobs.
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