Sinking in a human sea

The recently deceased former Secretary General of the UN, Boutrus Boutrus-Ghali, once sagely observed that "Egypt with a population of 20 million people could have been a Mediterranean country, a Greece or Portugal. Egypt with 70 million people will be Bangladesh."

Egypt now has more than 90 million people and indeed, more closely resembles South Asian than northern Mediterranean counties. In another thirty years Egypt, with a population projected to be 140-150 million, will be more populous than either Russia or Japan.  

Egypt is not alone in the MENA region in being swamped by rapid population growth. Over the past century the MENA population growth rate has exceeded that of any other world region. The rate accelerated dramatically in the second half of the twentieth century, when total population grew from 100 million to 380 million. The MENA's population, now nearly half a billion, grew at an average of 2.1 percent annually in the decade after 2004, almost double the world average, only exceeded by sub-Saharan Africa.

Ominous as its recent demographic history is, portents for the MENA's demographic future are yet more threatening. First and most importantly, "population momentum", by which is meant the higher number of births resulting from each succeeding generation entering childbearing age being larger than its predecessor, is accelerating. In the next half century the MENA's population, presently growing at more than 7 million annually, is expected to double, taking it to as much as one billion people.

Egyptian demography illustrates the impact of this momentum. In 2008 2.1 million children were born, while by 2012 more than 2.6 million were being born annually, the largest number by far in Egypt's history. The cascading effect of Egypt's population momentum is ominous. Whereas the 25-29 year old generation in 2012 comprised 8 million people, those five to nine years old numbered 9 million in that year and those zero to four years old more than 11 million. Every four years now the size of the class entering primary school increases by some 28 percent, placing huge additional pressure on an educational system already struggling to cope with a crushing student load.

Another dark cloud appears to be forming on the MENA's demographic horizon, which is that its "demographic transition" appears to be stalling. That transition is the parallel shift from high to low mortality and fertility.

Over the past century the MENA population growth rate has exceeded that of any other world region

While mortality rates continue to fall in the MENA, in some of its countries fertility has rebounded, a virtually unheard of trend in the developing world. MENA demographic data is beginning to reflect this rebound. Annual population growth in the MENA was 3.4 percet in 1990 and dropped to 1.9 percent in 2000 and then fell further to 1.7 percent in 2010. But by 2014 the rate according to the World Bank had bounced back up to 1.9%. 

Egypt again illustrates the regional trend. Its fertility rate in 1980 it was 5.3 children per mother, but declined to 3.3 by 1997 and to 3.0 by 2008. Four years later, however, the rate had bounced back up to 3.5. Ragui Assaad and his collaborators working on Egyptian demography attribute this stalling, indeed reversal, of the normal demographic transition to deteriorating economic conditions.

Unemployment has driven women especially out of the labor force, so their lack of alternatives combined with family financial survival strategies produce incentives to have more children.

In the MENA more generally economic stagnation and rapid population growth interact to produce doubly toxic effects. Among them is the extraordinarily high rate of economic dependency, which is the ratio of the economically inactive to active population.

Because the MENA's population is so young, with more than a third of its population under 15 years of age, and the female labor participation rate so low, the proportion of the population economically active is the world’s lowest. The only countries in the world where the dependency ratio exceeds two or more persons for each active one are in the MENA.

Coping with these challenges would stress even well-developed polities with capable representative, judicial and executive institutions, none of which exist in the countries of the MENA

Coupled with the world's lowest labor force participation rate the MENA also has the world's highest unemployment rate, implying among other things that the rate of population growth has far outstripped the absorptive capacities of the MENA economy.

The MENA's rapid population growth is threatening the well-being and potentially the very survival of significant proportions of its national populations. It was self-sufficient in food production in the 1960s, with a ratio of 1.11 for food production versus population growth. That ratio fell to 0.82 in the mid-1980s and then to 0.72 in the early 1990s.

By 2000 the MENA was importing 40 percent of its food and is now importing more than half of it. MENA population growth has reduced per capita arable land availability to 0.19 hectares, the lowest ratio in the world's developing regions. Paralleling the steep decline in food self-sufficiency is that of water availability.

The MENA is the world's most water deprived region, with population growth placing huge strain on existing resources, such that per capita water supplies are dropping at alarming rates. They fell from 3,300 cubic meters annually in 1975 to 1,500 in 2001 and are on track to be as little as 1,000 cubic meters in less than ten years, the global standard for water scarcity. Fourteen of the world's 33 most water stressed countries are in the MENA.

The negative consequences of overly rapid population growth are not just economic and environmental. They are also political. Coping with these challenges would stress even well-developed polities with capable representative, judicial and executive institutions, none of which exist in the countries of the MENA.

The older a country's population, the more likely it is to consolidate a democratic transition

Contributing to the destabilisation of existing governments, the MENA's "population bomb" has also slowed its transition to democracy. The older a country's population, the more likely it is to consolidate a democratic transition. The threshold age for successful transitions appears to be 30.

The median age in Arab countries is the second lowest in the world, with only sub-Saharan African countries being younger. Tunisia, whose prospects for a successful transition appear to be the brightest in the Arab world, is also the 'oldest' Arab country, with a median age of 29.

The MENA's economies, environments and polities are thus sinking beneath the weight of ever growing numbers of people. Thus far the policy responses nationally, regionally and globally have been profoundly inadequate given the magnitude of the various threats resulting from too rapid population expansion. It is far past the time for concerted action to be taken to reduce the MENA's population growth rate.

Robert Springborg is Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies, King's College London, and non-resident Research Fellow of the Italian Institute of International Affairs. Until October, 2013, he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and Program Manager for the Middle East for the Center for Civil-Military Relations.

From 2002 until 2008 he held the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he also served as Director of the London Middle East Institute. Before taking up that Chair he was Director of the American Research Center in Egypt.

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.