page_title: Generation Alpha
section_title: Africa
hierarchical_section_title: Generation Alpha / Demographics / Africa
caption_attribution_description: English: The population pyramid of Egypt illustrates the age and sex structure of population and may provide insights about political and social stability, as well as economic development. The population is distributed along the horizontal axis, with males shown on the left and females on the right. The male and female populations are broken down into 5-year age groups represented as horizontal bars along the vertical axis, with the youngest age groups at the bottom and the oldest at the top. The shape of the population pyramid gradually evolves over time based on fertility, mortality, and international migration trends.
context_page_description: Generation Alpha is the demographic cohort succeeding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 2010s as the starting birth years and the mid-2020s as the ending birth years. Named after the first letter in the Greek alphabet, Generation Alpha is the first to be born entirely in the 21st century. Most members of Generation Alpha are the children of Millennials.
context_section_description: Egypt's population reached the 100-million milestone in February 2020. According to government figures, during the 1990s and 2000s, Egypt's fertility rate fell from 5.2 down to 3.0, but then rose up to 3.5 in 2018, according to the United Nations. If the current rate of growth continues, Egypt will be home to more than 128 million people by 2030. Such rapid population growth is a cause for concern in a country marked by poverty, unemployment, shortages of clean water, lack of affordable housing, and traffic congestion. Harsh geography exacerbates the problem: 95% of the population lives on just 4% of the land, a region in the neighborhood of the Nile River roughly half the size of Ireland. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi claimed that overpopulation posed as much a threat to national security as terrorism. He launched a campaign called “Two Is Enough” in order to curb the problem, but to no avail. Egypt's fertility rate surged at around the Arab Spring, likely as a result of political chaos, economic uncertainty, and funds for birth control from Western governments drying up. Fertility rates remained the highest in rural areas, where children are considered a blessing, but the impact is most visible in Greater Cairo, a megalopolis home to over 20 million people. In general, Egypt's densely populated cities and towns have one million additional residents each year between 2008 and 2018.
  Nigeria was experiencing a population boom in the 2010s and is on track to become the world's third most populous nation by century's end, according to United Nations figures. However, this demographic trend comes with its own risks, namely environmental, health, and food security problems. Moreover, the nation is already battling deadly infectious diseases, which spread more easily with higher population densities, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and Lassa fever.
  Statistical projections from the United Nations in 2019 suggest that, by 2020, the people of Niger would have a median age of 15.2, Mali 16.3, Chad 16.6, Somalia, Uganda, and Angola all 16.7, the Democratic Republic of the Congo 17.0, Burundi 17.3, Mozambique and Zambia both 17.6. (This means that more than half of their populations were born in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.) Benin, Burundi, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Yemen, and Timor-Leste had a median age of 17 in 2017, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations, University of Washington. These are the world's youngest countries by median age. While a booming population can induce substantial economic growth, if healthcare, education, and economic needs were not met, there would be chronic youth unemployment, low productivity, and social unrest. Investing in human capital is crucial. Curbing population growth could help Africa take advantage of the demographic dividend that enabled the Asian Tigers to develop so rapidly during the late twentieth century. Africa's population boom could have a significant international impact, as many of its natives seek to migrate to other countries both within and without Africa seeking a better life.
  While Africa is the world's most fertile region, it also has the world's highest child mortality rates. Nevertheless, Africa is largely responsible for human population growth in the twenty-first century, overtaking Asia. Moreover, sub-Saharan Africa is the only major region that is an exception to the general trend of falling family size seen around the world.
caption: Population pyramid of Egypt in 2018
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