Population phenomena and transformations in Egyptian society

Population phenomena and transformations in Egyptian society

 Prof. Dr. Moustafa El-Abdullah Al Kafry

Thepopulation quality study in any country in the world depends mainly on quantitative demographic variables (population, population growth rate, population growth…)  – Researchers from other scientific fields participate, the most important of which are:

• Medicine (health and physical)
• Education (cognitively and educationally)
• Sociology and psychology (socially and psychologically)
• Law (and addresses the dimension of human rights
• Economy (which means meeting human goods needs, as well as providing investment spending for the above-mentioned aspects of health, education and other services).

The most important phenomena and population transformations in Egyptian society:

We can monitorthe following most important phenomena and population transformations in Egyptian society:

• Although the city’s rural boundaries have been mixed in recent years, there are rural areas within cities and urban parts of rural areas. Egypt’s urban-rural distribution of the population is shifting again – albeit at a small rate for the benefit of the countryside as follows:[1]

Distribution of population in Egypt between urban and rural

The year	Urban population %	Rural population %
1986	44	56
1996	43	57

A significant growth has been observed in the size and population of informal areas in mostegyptian governorates, where the population of informal areas in Cairo, Giza and Alexandria reached about 4.5 million, which is equivalent to 17.6% of the total urban population, and this percentage is high by all standards.

Expansion and growth of informal areas from dangerous phenomena:

The expansion and growth of informal areas is a serious phenomenon in Egyptian society due to the conditions experienced by the population (informal areas where there is a severe shortage of facilities, housing conditions and miserable living, which turns them into poverty belts surrounding the city and serves as explosive “baroud barrels” if the problems of these areas are not urgently addressed and integrated into the country’s main economic and social body. About the social, moral and psychological complications associated with overcrowding in housing units and the high degree of relative deprivation in a society full of extreme wealth of every class and color)

Census data indicate that the number of illiterate people in Egypt (10 years and older) reaches about 40% of the total population, which means 17.4 million people.

Declining marriage and family formation rates:

Declining rates of marriage and family formation due to the difficulty of obtaining adequate housing or regular work form the basis for regularity in married life.

– The number of establishments operating in Egypt increased from 1.22 million in 1986 to about 1.8 million in 1996, and in 1996 the number of retail establishments reachedabout 864,000, including 286,000 grocery stores.

There are about 25,000 law firms, more than 35,000 doctor’s clinics and about 13,000 private clinics and clinics.

These are some of the features of the picture as revealed by the preliminary data of the 1996 General Census of Population, Housing and Installations. It is perhaps clear that the census data serve as a sincere mirror that reflects the topography of demographic, economic and social reality at the level of the Republic and its provinces, away from speculation and fancy.  [2]

Human Development Reports is a compilation index for measuring human development:

Human Development Reports rely on a compiling index to measure and compare states’ achievement in human development index and the Global Human Development Index, which is used to compare and rank states according to human development efforts, is a synthetic indicator calculated from three main elements:

• Average per capita GNP (an indicator of access to resources to achieve a decent standard of life);
• Life expectancy at birth (longevity index);
• Literacy ratio (index to measure knowledge acquisition).

Egyptian Human Development Reports also uses the same measurement method for the Human Development Index developed in UNDP Human Development Reports, but is used to compare the development of development efforts at the provincial level of Egypt.[3]

It is clear from the above that to study and understand the dynamics of the population format to identify all the above-mentioned issues associated with human development and ensure its sustainability, there is a need to develop quantitative indicators to measure evolution over time, which in fact requires the development of an integrated model, beyond simply focusing on population projection. It expands to include all socio-environmental factors affecting the population dimension.

Prof. Dr. Moustafa El-Abdullah Al Kafry

Faculty of Economics – Damascus University

[1]  – Dr. Mahmoud Abdul Fadil، Egypt and wind Globalization, Al , Hilal Book Series 6.

[2]  – Look, Dr. Mahmoud Abdul Fadil، Egypt and wind Globalization, Crescent Book Series P. 19.

[3]  – The development of human development indicators for the state of the Arab Republic of Egypt can be identified by different provinces, by looking at human development reports Egyptian which Institute of Planning NationalCairo, starting a year ago, 1994.