Ideal Family Size and Fertility in Egypt: An Overview of Recent Trends

Abstract

Egypt is already the most populous Arab country in the world with 93 million citizens in 2016 which may grow to about 120 million by 2030 if the same level of fertility continues. This paper aims to offer an overview of the evolution over time of the ideal number of children in Egypt, assessing previous researches and giving a particular emphasis on most recent data on such topic. In a context of raising fertility, whose causes are still unknown, we test the persistence of a high ideal number of children among younger cohorts.