Ahmed Mahmoud Khattab 900104007 Sociology 210 paper

Controlling Overpopulation through One Child Policy Charles Darwin, a great scientist, has published a book The origin of the species in 1859 that explained how different species evolved. The theory behind this is Natural Selection. It explains how Natural Selection forces the populations of different species keep increasing till a certain limit where the population size keeps the same if conditions didnt change. This theory states that members of species usually give births to a number bigger than those who can survive. This is because natural resources are limited. The individuals given birth to will compete to benefit from these resources. Individuals with the characteristics favored by the surrounding environment will win the competition will benefit from the natural resources, while others will die. This is what is called Survival for the best, leading to a constant size of population. This theory successful explains the behavior of population growths of most of animals and plants species. The reason for this is that size of population is naturally regulated by Natural Selection. The important question is, does this apply to humans? Scientists have argued about this a lot and till now no clear conclusion has been reached to. According to NPR channel and as seen in the figure below, Since the creation of Earth and the presence of humanity, global population has been increasing. After hundreds of thousands of years since the presence of humans, global population reached 1 billion. Population doubled to 2 billion just in additional 100 years. After 33 more years, we reached 3 billion. Now, 1 billion is added every 13 years. Currently we are approximately 7 billion and it is expected that we will reach 9.5 Billion by 2050. So, why have we been increasing in population so fast in the past few years? In the early decades, number of

births was nearly equal to number of deaths. Many of the children died before growing up, forming families, and giving birth to others. In the last decades, humanity has seen tremendous improvements in agriculture and medical care that led to an increase in human life expectancy. Birth rates became larger than death rates leading to the crisis of overpopulation that has caused massive destruction to many of the countries including Egypt.

Before getting into the details of the current situation of overpopulation in Egypt, we should first define what Overpopulation is. According to the website Ask Define, overpopulation is A situation which occurs when the number of occupants of an area exceeds the ability of that area to provide for those occupants. This means that an increase in the number of population doesnt necessarily mean that there is overpopulation. This is because overpopulation is a relation between the size of the population and their satisfaction with their basic needs. The condition in Egypt is very bad. Population has been increasing rapidly reaching 90 million few months ago. The statistics by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics state the

annual rate of population increase is 1.9 million people and it is expected that Egypt will reach 155 million people by 2050 putting Egypt on the list of the most 15 populous countries in the world. As mentioned on AFRICAW website, this crisis of overpopulation has led to many major problems facing Egypt today. One of the major problems is the corrosion of agriculture land. One of the most fertile lands in the world is the land around the Nile. Because of overpopulation, many of these lands have turned from agriculture lands to shelters that can withstand large number of citizens to live in. Away from corrosion of agriculture land, this led to another major problem, the problem of the squatter settlements. 25% of the Egyptian population is living in the squatter settlements because of their inability to buy a shelter to live in. As a result of this, in many of the Egyptians areas there is no basic infrastructure; no water supply, no electricity and no sewage. More and more, overpopulation led to the low quality of education offered in public schools and public universities. Pollution with all its types is facing Egypt today; water pollution, air pollution and sound pollution. Theoretically, there are many solutions such as awareness campaigns and increasing production to satisfy the big number of population and many other solutions. However, these solutions seem to be ineffective as they require long time, money and effort to be applied. Apart from these solutions, there is another solution that seems weird. However, it was successful to prevent 400 million babies from being born when applied in China in the beginning of the 1980s. This research should answer the following question: Can the one child policy be applied in Egypt? As narrated by Fitzpatrick in an article on Time website, China began suffering from the crisis of overpopulation beginning the 1970s. They suffered from the same problems we are now suffering in Egypt such as: low quality of education, unemployment and the amount of the produced products didnt satisfy the amount of population. The law was applied in the 1980s

restricting each family to have only one child. The punishment for an additional child differs according to the different provinces. Some paid fines and some pregnant Chinese women suffered from forced abortions. This law was intended to be applied for only 30 years. However, the 30 years have passed and the law is still applying with no intentions to remove it. As mentioned before, this law was successful to prevent 400 million Chinese births. However, does this mean it should be applied in Egypt? To have a good answer to this question, we should first analyze the impacts of applying such a law on the different aspects of life in Egypt. A research was conducted by Minh Quang Dua, a professor of Economics in Eastern Illionois University, to show how the demographic factors affect the economy either positively or negatively. Interpretations and conclusions made in that research paper are based on statistical measures on data acquired from 2010 World Development Indicator related to 43 different developing countries. The research shows the transition between two different states of a country. The first state in which there are low incomes and high population growth rates. The second state is having high incomes and low population growths. Although he stated that the transition from one state to another rarely happens because of the difficulty of controlling population growth, he found that when the transition occur it happens really fast because of the strong relationship between population growth rates and economy and average incomes. Based on many statistical measures on 43 different economies, Minh concluded that economy growth is negatively proportional to population growth rates. In other words, if population growth rates increases, GDP growth decreases and vice versa. Minh stated that the conclusion of this research can aid governments of developing countries to put policies that can aid fast economic growth. He gave an example to the one child policy that was able to decrease the fertility rate from 5.8 to 2.2 births resulting into a great positive impact on the Chinese economy. So from the economic

point of view, one of the ways if it is not the only way to have a quick and effective positive impact on the Egyptian economy we should control our population growths. The only strategy that turned to be effective worldwide to do this is the one child policy. One of the main aspects that would affect talking the decision of applying this law or not in Egypt is the effect of such a law on the children themselves. A law that permits only a child without brothers and sisters seems cruel. So, lets analyze the differences between children having siblings and between single children. Sociologists have conducted many researches to evaluate the sociological differences between single children and children with siblings. Falbo and Polit conducted 115 experiments to evaluate the academic differences between single children and those with siblings. They found out that single children showed pretty much better academic standards than those with siblings. Coming to social skills, many would think that single children suffer from inability to effectively interact with people. On the contrary, researches conducted by Chen, Rubin and Li showed that the differences between social skills of those single children and children with siblings are much small. Surprisingly, this small difference turns to be an advantage to single children as it was found that they behave better in schools and they behave as amazing leaders. Other sociologists and researchers have found that the differences in the personalities between the single children and others is not because of the presence or lack of interaction between the siblings, however it is the way they are treated by their families. Researchers in chinas Centre for Children development have showed that families of single children showed more expectancy on their children leading to more care being provided. They also showed that lack of interaction between the siblings can be compensated if children begin their education at Kindergarten level because of school mates interactions. To sum up in few words, with families showing up some care in bringing up their children and

educating them at an early level, children would be in a better social and academic standard than children with siblings if such a law is applied. These days under the rule of President Moahmed Morsy, who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood Party, it has been a controversial issue of whether to apply the Islamic Sharia or not. Also, people are always in debates on the possibility of the conversion of Egypt from being a Civil Country to a Religious country. Christians in Egypt are suffering from not getting their rights under the rule of the Muslims Brotherhood. Under these conditions we are now, it is very essential to look at the religious perspective the Islamic and the Christian- of applying such a law in Egypt. Taking the Islamic perspective, we can find that 23 scholars discussed the idea of contraception and family/birth control in the first part of volume 5 of Majallah Majma al-Fiqh al-Islaami (1988/1409 A.H.) In this part, it was mentioned that Muslims have the right to control the number of children they have and the timings between them using contraceptive methods. However, it is a big sin to kill their child because of fear of poverty. Moreover, the scholars agreed that applying a law that enforces people with the number of children to have is completely against Islam and should be forbidden. They concluded this referring to some phrases from Quran such as: And Allah has made for you spouses of your own kind and has made for you, from your wives, sons and grandsons, and has bestowed upon you good provisions." (al-Nahl 72), "Wealth and children are the adornment of the life of this world." (al-Kahf 46) and And kill not your children for fear of poverty. We shall provide for them as well as for you. Surely, the killing of them is a great sin" (al-Isra 31). Christianity is also against a law that would limit number of births. This is obvious as when the president of Philippine recommended a legislation that would bill those who give birth to more than one child, all the catholic churches opposed him preventing this law from being applied. This was

clarified when Bishop Gabriel Reyes, chairman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on Family stated It is against the natural moral law regarding marriage. According to the website Business Dictionary, Human Rights are defined as The fundamental rights that humans have by the fact of being human, and that are neither created nor can be abrogated by any government. So, the necessary question is, does the one child policy violate the International human rights rules? This question was asked to Sophie Richardson, the director of Human Rights, when interviewed on the WNYC. She stated that the one child policy is by all means against human rights. She mentioned that one of the rights of the women is to determine the number of children she wants and not to be limited by the government by a certain number. Moreover, she stated that the policy doesnt only stand violate the human rights because of limiting the number of children, but the policy leads to many other consequences that lead to more and more violations. One of these consequences is forced sterilizations and abortions for those who cant pay the fines. Applying the one child policy specifically in Egypt will lead to many additional violations to human rights because of Gender preference in the Egyptian rural areas. A study made by Professor Yount, a sociology professor in Emory University, showed a great preference of having males children over females in Egypt. In the study, 2/3 of females showed that they prefer to have sons over females. The study also showed that pregnant women in Minya usually give more care to her infant if it is male. So what would be the consequences of applying the one child policy in a society that is biased to male genders over female? This will lead to many of abortions by the mothers if they knew that their infants are female. It will also result in many divorces. Many of the Egyptian men will marry other women searching for a one that would give a birth to a son that can carry on his family

name based on the Egyptian traditions. So, these are many sorts and types of violations of human rights that would take place if the one child policy is applied in Egypt. To come to conclusion on whether to apply the one child policy in Egypt or not it is important to sum up what we have reached in this research paper from all different perspectives. First from the economic point of view, it seems that the one child law can have a great positive impact on the Egyptian economy and even in a very short time when compared with other proposals. Second, the one child policy doesnt have a negative impact on the children if their families give them the necessary care and allow them to interact with other children by beginning their education in schools from an early age. Third, from the religious point of view it turns out that both Islam and Christianity are against the concept of applying a law that limits the women with a specific number of births. Fourth, this law is considered a cruel one that is against the human rights that are known universally. Moreover, Egyptian traditions will result in more and more violations of human rights if the one child policy is applied. From all the perspectives, in my own opinion we are not ready for such a law. As although such a law should have a positive impact on the economy, I think this will not be the case in Egypt. This is because this law will cause the frustrations of the Islamists and from revolutionaries searching for freedom and my result in another revolution.

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