Egypt: Population jumps 16m people after 2011 revolution

Egypt’s population has increased by 16 million people after the 2011 revolution, the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) revealed today.

In meeting held by the Egyptian parliament’s health committee, the adviser to the CAPMAS chairman, Mohamed Abdel Gelil El-Dessouki, revealed the reasons behind the unprecedented growth in the country’s population rate.

“At a time when Egypt’s total population was 10 million, it used to increase by average of 10 million people every 50 years, according to official statistics in 1900,” El-Dessouki said.

By 1950, we reached 20 million, while the country’s population has jumped by 16 million after the 2011 revolution at a rate of a born baby every 15 seconds,

he added.

El-Dessouki pointed out that the recent population growth rate is equivalent to the population of three Arab countries, criticising those who attack the government that it is unable to absorb it.

The Egyptian official noted that China’s population growth represents half of the Egyptian rate. However, he stressed, its economic growth rate amounts to 14 times higher than its rate of population growth.

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“Therefore, China’s population increase represents no burden, but ours is a big problem,” he warned

According to the agency’s latest statistics, Egypt’s unemployment rate has reached 3.6 million individuals.

CAMPAS also showed that the Upper Egypt governorates have recorded the country’s highest population growth and poverty rates, which the agency believed to have forced some families to take their children out of schools for early work.

El-Dessouki also attributed the population increase to the high illiteracy rate as well as the shortage of birth control medications in the governorates’ medical centres. According to the agency, 40 per cent of the Egyptians can’t read and write, 25.8 per cent of whom are women.

He called for the need to launch “intensive” birth control awareness campaigns as well as the creation of jobs for all Egyptians.