Giving Compass' Take:

· In 2000, the UN predicted the population in Egypt to reach 96 million in 2026. Although that seemed to be a large number reliant on rapid growth, it was exceeded in 2017 when the population reached 104.5 million 10 years early. The Brookings Institution discusses the consequences of this large growth and the future of Egypt.

· Basic laws of rapid growth suggest that Egypt will experience a population bust in the future. What effects will the bust have? How will it impact the world?

· Read about the perils of overpopulation


Egypt’s worrying population boom fails to generate the same headline attention as terrorist attacks, the impact of economic reforms on the poor, the country’s hyper-constrained politics, or accusations of human rights violations. Yet, the very real dangers it poses were highlighted when the head of the country’s statistical agency, Abu Bakr el-Gendy, called this seemingly irrepressible tide a “catastrophe.” To Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, it is a “challenge as critical as terrorism.”

The numbers are certainly daunting. In 2000, the United Nations estimated that Egypt’s population would hit 96 million in 2026. They were off by about 10 years. In 2017, there were some 104.5 million Egyptians, of which 9.5 million lived outside the country. The 2006 census counted 73 million people, an annual increase of 2.6 percent since then. Unless the fertility rate of 3.47 changes, by 2030, Egypt’s population is expected to grow to 128 million. This growth, with 2.6 million babies born in 2016, comes at a time of unprecedented challenges on the climate front with serious implications for loss of arable land (also under pressure from housing), rising sea levels, and depletion of scarce water resources. The Nile faces upstream challenges as Ethiopia builds Africa’s largest dam and pollution eats away at the river’s usability for agriculture and other needs.

This growth has grave implications. The number of primary school students grew by 40 percent from 2011 to 2016. One can imagine the impact on a system where 35 percent of students entering middle school cannot read or write. Employment is another challenge, with 700,000 new entrants annually into a labor force where over 25 percent of those 18-29 years old—one-third of whom have university degrees—are unemployed. The International Monetary Fund projects a labor force of 80 million by 2028. Reminiscent of the 2011 revolution, in which youth played a major role, 61 percent of the current population is under 30 years old and 34.2 percent is under 15 years old.

As the largest Arab and Mediterranean country, this problem could arguably be a regional if not a global one. Unless Egypt curbs its population and develops an economy that turns its youth into an asset, the liability resulting from failure is unlikely to be contained within Egypt.

Read the full article about consequences of the growing population in Egypt by Omer Karasapan and Sajjad Shah at The Brookings Institution.