Fertility and Population Policy in Algeria: Discrepancies between Planning and Outcomes

Abstract

over the last fifty years algeria has undergone major political, socioeconomic, and demographic upheavals. in population terms, the current situation and the concerns it raises are the very reverse of the position in the 1960s. despite the loss of lives during the war of liberation from France in the late 1950s until independence in 1962, the first census taken in independent algeria confirmed the extent of the country's population growth. Between the 1954 and 1966 censuses the country's predominantly muslim population had risen from less than 9 million to 12 million, an average annual increase of over 2.6 percent. at that rate, a population doubles in 30 years, and algerian researchers at the time were alarmed by a study by the algerian association for demographic, economic, and Social research (aardeS) which indicated that this growth would accelerate and might approach 4 percent a year by 1985. this would mean a doubling of the country's population in less than 20 years. despite these warnings, far from introducing a policy to reduce population growth, the algerian government adopted a discourse hostile to the notion of family planning, which was seen as imperialist in nature.although the census of 1977 provided some evidence for the alarmist thesis, with an intercensal average annual growth rate of 3.2 percent for 1966-77, civil registration data showed that the rate of natural increase began falling in the early 1970s. in fact, the predicted 4 percent annual rate was never reached. although officials and decisionmakers were fairly quick to understand the economic and social challenges posed by a 3 percent population growth rate, the fact that the growth rate was significantly lower than had been feared delayed discussion of the need to introduce a population policy in algeria. as a result, it was not until 1983 that the first national program to control population growth was enacted.

Forecast accuracy hardly improves with method complexity when completing cohort fertility

“…Not surprisingly, major challenges across regions are fertility declines that deviate from continuous trends or the experience of other countries. The top methods produce relatively large forecast errors for eastern Germany when fertility fell to unprecedentedly low levels after German reunification ( 35 ) and for Algeria when fertility sharply declined from over eight to only two children per woman between the 1970s and the 2000s ( 36 ). No method has found an effective remedy against such unstable fertility developments so far.…”

Trends in Age at Marriage and the Onset of Fertility Transition in sub‐Saharan Africa

“…According to this outline, the inhibiting effect of delayed nuptiality increases, on average, in the first stage of fertility transition, but the impact of contraception becomes dominant and much stronger as the fertility transition progresses (Bongaarts 1992). In some regions, like North Africa in the 1970s and the 1980s, the postponement of marriage was a leading cause of fertility decline (Westoff 1992;Ouadah-Bedidi and Vallin 2000). In sub-Saharan Africa, the picture is more mixed.…”

“…Only in North Africa are levels and trends in age at first union similar to those in Southern Africa (not included in this study; see Ouadah and Vallin , ). While a median age at marriage for women above age 25 has never been observed in other continental sub‐Saharan countries, there are cases of sharp increases in age at first marriage in each region: Gabon and Cameroon in Middle Africa, Rwanda in Eastern Africa, and most countries in the Gulf of Guinea in Western Africa (Figure ).…”

The ‘Islam of the Government’: The Islamic High Councils in Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia

“…In any case, the IHC served Boumedienne’s government to justify many of his policies, giving them an Islamic guise. An example can be found in the fatwā issued by the Council on April 1968 that encouraged birth control and followed the government fight against the demographic growth (Ouadah-Bedidi and Vallin, 2012).…”