Can Movies and TV Programs Lower Egypt's Fertility?

Fertility has been going up, not down, in Egypt over the past few years, as I have blogged about twice over the past two years (here and here). A paper just published in Demographic Research by researchers at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna analyzes the available data--especially from the Demographic and Health Surveys--and comes to the following conclusion:

We find that well-educated women between 20 and 29 years lack labour market opportunities. They may have preponed their fertility. Fertility could start declining again once the labour market situation for women has improved. On the other hand, the family model of three children is still widespread in the country.

I admit that I have never used the word "prepone", but it is the opposite of "postpone" and it makes sense in this usage. In a footnote in the paper, the authors indicate that the Egyptian government was trying to figure out what to do in order to lower the birth rate. My thanks to Abu Daoud who found a story about one of the things being tried--movies and TV programs.

In announcing the results of Egypt's 2017 census on Sept. 30, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also identified major issues surrounding the population that has grown past 100 million: early marriage, insufficient housing and, most important, overpopulation. He said, “We must face these flaws in society in collaboration with civil society and media.” His reference to the media gave newspapers and websites the green light to analyze the potential of the media as well as the film industry in confronting overpopulation in the country.

Overpopulation and problems associated with it, such as higher costs of living and uncontrolled urbanization, have long been on the agenda of the Egyptian cinema, along with issues that are hampering the lowering of birth rates, such as a rejection of birth control.

One of the challenges here is that the government has to back up any influence that the media might have by making family planning programs readily available to couples. And, of course, there has to be recognition that getting women back to work is a key element in lowering fertility. Even in urban areas, fertility remains higher than one might expect. More than a decade ago, my colleagues and I published an article on fertility in Cairo, in which we noted that:

Fertility transitions are historically thought to have started in cities and then spread to the rest of the country. This would suggest that in Egypt we would find that Cairo was well ahead of the rest of the nation in its fertility transition. The data suggest otherwise and highlight the fact that many parts of Cairo are still experiencing high levels of fertility.

There is still a long way to go to lower fertility in Egypt, but the country desperately needs to slow that pace as soon as possible--since it is, among other things, a nation facing potential water scarcity and the dangers associated with that.