by Farzaneh (Nazy) Roudi

United Nations Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects, the 1999 Revision: Key Findings (New York: UN Population Division, 1999).

(November 2001)

Rapid population growth in the Middle East and North Africa exacerbates the challenges that this region faces as it enters the third millennium.

Over the past 50 years, this region (MENA) experienced the highest rate of population growth of any region in the world. The total population increased from around 100 million in 1950 to around 380 million in 2000 — an addition of 280 million people in 50 years. During this period the population of the MENA region increased 3.7 times, more than any other major world region.

Regardless of the level of economic development or national income, MENA governments are increasingly challenged to provide the basic needs for a growing numbers of citizens — adequate housing, sanitation, health care, education, and jobs — and to combat poverty, narrow the gap between rich and poor, and generally improve the standard of living. In addition, the region's scarce water resources need to be managed in the face of growing demand.

Its young population gives unprecedented momentum to MENA's population growth. One-third of MENA's population is under age 15. Over the next 15 years these children and adolescents will reach their childbearing years and enter the job market. In most MENA countries, the number of women of childbearing age (15 to 49 years) will at least double in the next 30 years. Providing quality reproductive health services to a growing number of women is a challenge and is key to slowing population growth.

As MENA's total population increases, so does its elderly population and with it a health burden that has important implications for the cost and configuration of health systems. For example, the elderly population of Egypt (60 years and older) is expected to grow from 4.3 million in 2000 to 23.7 million in 2050. Saudi Arabia's elderly population is expected to grow from 1 million in 2000 to 7.7 million in 2050.

MENA's working age population is growing very rapidly as huge cohorts of children reach adulthood. In 1996, for example, there were five Jordanians under 15 years of age poised to enter the labor market for every Jordanian age 45 to 60 nearing retirement age. For Saudi nationals, this ratio was 8_to_1 in 1996. The region's economic dependency — the ratio of the economically inactive to economically active population — is the highest in the world. Because of its young age structure and low level of female labor force participation, the proportion of the population that is economically active is lower in MENA than in all other regions. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the only countries with a dependency ratio of two or higher (an average of two or more persons not economically active per one economically active person) are found in the MENA region.

Commitment to political stability, investment in health and human resources, and sound economic policies can turn the population challenges of MENA to "demographic bonuses." A demographic bonus may occur, for example, when a large young population is healthy, and when both boys and girls are educated, trained, and ready to be absorbed in a market economy and to contribute to the national economy. Unfortunately, MENA countries are currently more likely to experience "brain drain," as large flows of educated people leave the region for Europe, North America, and other parts of the world.

Many governments struggle to provide for the basic needs of their growing populations. MENA's unemployment rate is the highest in the world. According to one analysis, between 1996 and 2010, MENA economies will need to create half again as many additional jobs as those that existed in 1996 in order to prevent the region's unemployment rate from increasing above its mid_1990s' rate of about 14 percent — assuming the proportion of working-age population who enter the labor market remains unchanged. The Egyptian economy, for example, needs to create an additional 500,000 new jobs each year to absorb new entrants into its job market. Even some of the oil-rich countries in the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia, which have traditionally had no unemployment, are faced with youth unemployment.

Unemployment is highest among young people and women. According to the United Nations, in Jordan in 1997, three-quarters of the unemployed were 15 to 29 years of age, and the female unemployment rate was twice as high as that of men. Women in MENA face the highest rate of unemployment in the world. According to the ILO, the largest gender gaps in unemployment are found in MENA. Unemployment rates in Egypt were reported to be 24 percent for women in 1995, compared to 7 percent for men.

To prepare its growing working-age population for the era of economic globalization, MENA requires a much greater investment in human resources, including greater support for skills training for young people, increasing female literacy, and enhancing the economic options for women. Despite governments' efforts in the area of education, the number of illiterate adults continues to increase in some countries. In Egypt, between 1980 and 1995, the literacy rate among the population age 15 years and older increased from 40 percent to 50 percent, but the total number of illiterate Egyptians still grew from 16 million to 19 million. Morocco's illiterate population grew from 8 million in 1980 to 9.5 million in 1995, despite the increase in its literacy rate from 29 percent to 44 percent, according to data from UNESCO. Two-thirds of MENA's illiterate adults are women.

Managing rapidly growing urban populations in the face of housing shortages and inadequate infrastructure is also becoming more of a challenge. The populations of cities are growing faster than the populations of the countries as a whole, as population growth in the rural areas feeds a pool of potential rural-to-urban migrants. Currently, Cairo (10.6 million), Istanbul (9.6 million), and Tehran (7.2 million) are ranked 19th, 22nd, and 28th in the world, respectively. By 2015, Cairo (13.8 million) and Istanbul (12.5 million) are projected to rank 16th and 17th, according to the UN's latest estimates.

Rapid population growth threatens MENA's sustainable development, as the region is faced with the most severe water shortage of any region in the world. While it is home to 6.3 percent of the world's population, MENA holds only 1.4 percent of the world's accessible fresh water. Between 1975 and 2001, population growth caused the available renewable fresh water resources per person in MENA to drop by more than half: from 3,300 to 1,500 cubic meters per person per year. The per capita fresh water resources available are projected to decline to around 1,000 cubic meters by 2025, the internationally recognized threshold for water scarcity. Today, much of the region is already below the international standard, since nearly 80 percent of available fresh water in the region is found in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In countries such as Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, the national average is below 200 cubic meters per person per year.

Peace and political stability in the region are necessary for governments to address some of their population challenges, particularly those of refugees. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees, MENA, home to more than 6 million refugees, has the largest refugee population in the world. Iran has the largest number of refugees living in its territory. Palestinian refugees are the largest and oldest refugee population in the world.

In addition to a commitment to peace and political stability, sound environmental, social, and economic policies are needed to address these and a variety of other population-related challenges, such as labor migration and environmental degradation. Different policies ranging from labor and trade laws and regulations to those related to raising the status of women and protecting the environment all need to take into account the population factor.

Farzaneh (Nazy) Roudi is a policy analyst at the Population Reference Bureau.

References

Jalaleddin Jalali and Farzaneh Roudi, "Globalization and Unemployment in the Middle East and North Africa," in Population Challenges in the Middle East and North Africa: Toward the 21st Century, ed. I. Sirageldin (forthcoming).

Carl Haub and Diana Cornelius, 2001 World Population Data Sheet (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau).

Population Action International, People in the Balance: Population and Natural Resources at the Turn of the Millennium (Washington, DC: Population Action International, 2000).

World Resources Institute, World Resources 2000_2001 (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2000).

U.S. Committee for Refugees, World Refugee Survey 2001 (Washington, DC: U.S. Committee for Refugees, 2001).

International Labour Organization (ILO), World Labour Report 2000 (Geneva: ILO, 2000).

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Jordan Human Development Report 2000 (Amman, Jordan: UNDP, 2000).

United Nations Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), UNESCO Statistical Yearbook 1999 (Paris: UNESCO, 1999).

United Nations Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects, the 1999 Revision: Key Findings (New York: UN Population Division, 1999).