Last week, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) reported that the Egyptian population increased by a million citizens within nine months and five days, to record a total of 102 million Egyptian citizens.
This increase raises the question of whether the country can handle this population increase, especially at this alarming rate?
Egypt’s unemployment rate sat at 10.76 in 2019, a 0.83 percent decrease from 2018, when it sat at 11.59 percent. Although this may seem like the unemployment rate is dropping, it is a significant increase from the 7.95 percent unemployment rate recorded in 1999.
Egypt is seeing a 1.88 percent annual population growth rate and according to CAPMAS the Egyptian population will reach 119.8 million by 2030 to be equal to the census of 15 European countries.
What do these many figures mean for us and what do they mean for the country?
The Egyptian government is constantly working on new projects that provide many job opportunities in various fields and signing various agreements with entities to help fund small and medium enterprises, evidence of it being aware of the country’s unemployment rate and doing something about it.
But the government cannot work on its own to combat this issue of overpopulation, the idea towards kids and large families needs to be changed as well.
The second an Egyptian woman reaches her twenties she is bombarded with questions about her lovelife and pushed towards any man who approaches her, which is usually attributed to society wanting her to take advantage of her body while it’s fertile, as an early marriage means more time to get pregnant and the possibility of having more kids.
But at what cost?
If you know that you will bring up a kid in a country that will not allow them to reach their full potential because it is so overpopulated, then is it still the right thing to do?
It is understandable that people want to have kids, someone to carry the family name and make them proud, but is there a way to do that more sustainably? Is there a way to have kids in Egypt without worrying about their future? Whether or not they will get a good education? Find employment? Live the life they deserve to live?