Country Comments

Egypt has roughly five times as many people than the country can sustain. For the past five years Egypt’s population has increased by approximately two million citizens a year as its high fertility rate has hovered just under 3.5 children per mother. The average citizen in 2020 lived on approximately $3500 US dollars. Understanding that limiting his citizens already minimal consumption is untenable, the president has openly declared that overpopulation is one of the greatest dangers facing its country. His declaration could not come sooner as this population growth has created greater energy, food and water insecurity in a country with limited natural resources.

In 2020 the Egyptian parliament proposed a bill that seeks to not only criminalize child marriage, but also to incentivize family planning in order to address Egypt’s overpopulation crisis. The bill defines ‘ideal families’ as families that constitute four members or less—heterosexual parents and two children, according to Al Bawaba News. The eighth clause of the bill calls for the empowerment of women through regular awareness campaigns and free access to contraceptive methods. The bill also aims to promote family planning through economic incentives.