Which demographic characteristics prevail in the middle east

The reason for this is that the effects of population growth on economic development often lead to excessive pressures on natural resources. Rapid deforestation, desertification, and soil erosion are most acute where population growth and poverty are most apparent. Especially in the Middle East, where a growing population will require increased quantities of elementary goods, which may lead to increased production and a more extensive use of fertilisers and irrigation techniques which may damage the environment.

Central to any analysis of population-environment interaction is the issue of water. The availability of fresh water for both domestic and agricultural use has always been a basic prerequisite for human life and civilisation. But as it was noted above, in no other world region has water availability played such a dominating role in determining the settlement, growth and movement of human populations as it does in the Middle East.

The efficient use of the scarce water resource has become a central ingredient of Arab culture and of the structure of Middle Eastern societies and economies. Thus, the precarious balance of water resources in the Middle East is likely to be a sensitive and potentially explosive issue Naff and Matson ; Starr and Stoll Today, the growth of large cities in the Middle East and the need for industrialisation have imposed a tremendous burden on the water supply facilities of the urban centres for domestic and industrial use.

The increase in population numbers over the last 40 years has meant that such supplies have now become inadequate, and the water catchment in the region has had to be continuously enlarged in an attempt to cope with water demands. Even with these tremendous efforts, it may be said that almost every large city in the Middle East has water supply problems, and that these are likely to increase further.

Water availability is the most important constraint on rural land use in the region and the effects on cultivation are marked. The lack of water resources is likely to be felt most strongly in agricultural areas for two reasons. First, because their production systems lack redundancies that would allow them to adapt to sudden shifts in the amount of water resources available; and second, because they have little access to capital other than land that would permit rapid evolution of production strategies.

This means that the Middle East economies will be very much affected by possible shortages of water since they are basically agricultural economies. The human problems engendered by these shifts in water resources would be enormous.

Changes in the productivity of agriculture associated with potential and eventual shortages of water resources would lead to massive inland and international migrations that would in turn enhance existing social, economic and other related problems. Moreover, such changes would even lead to intra- or inter-state conflicts that would consequently endanger regional peace and stability.

The situation becomes more dramatic if we take into account the high rate of population growth in the region. Water availability also affects livestock rearing. The type of animals kept in particular areas is related to the amount of precipitation and drinking water to be expected there. Numbers increase in wet years and decrease in dry ones, creating a kind of dynamic equilibrium that is easily upset.

The effects of drought and water shortages in such a situation can be devastating. Related to the problem of water supply is the problem of sewage disposal Beaumont, Blake and Wagstaff , Human wastes are discharged untreated into the ground or into the nearest watercourse.

As a result, the shallow aquifers have become contaminated. Waste and effluent disposal is also causing concern, as the waters of special regions and cities, all of which possess great value from aesthetic, recreational and other utilitarian standpoints, become increasingly polluted.

The population of the Middle East is expected to continue growing in the foreseeable future. This would require significant investment. Therefore, demographic factors are closely related to the development of the Middle Eastern states and the region as a whole.

Moreover, demographic factors have important implications for all security sectors, while security interdependence makes the management of security threats not only challenging but politically imperative. Thus, addressing the impact of current population patterns on Middle Eastern communities, societies and states, as well as managing regional and transnational patterns of conflict and migration in the region is imperative for achieving both domestic security and regional stability.

For example, countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates UAE have placed legal obstacles and physical barriers preventing entry of asylum seekers and refugees as well as returning them involuntarily to their homes or to third countries. Generally speaking, national governments and local populations are loath to accept large numbers of people in great need, who are ethnically different and may pose threats to social stability.

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These factors affecting contraceptive use include urbanization, region, age group, education status, work status, duration of marriage in years, total number of children alive and dead, number of boys dead, and number of girls dead. The Chi square and T-test were used in the bivariate analysis, while logistic regression is used in the multivariate analysis.

Israel is the most pronatalist and populationist in the region, attitudes which large segments of the population share. The Jewish fertility rate in Israel, 2. It is also very high for a country where the standard of living is high and the population is educated.

The fertility rate has hardly dropped since the s, both among Jews and Palestinians with Israeli nationality: 3. These deviations in demographic transition can be ascribed to internal rivalry and complex obsidionary conditions, which easily take on a demographic dimension.

Six decades old, the Israeli-Arab conflict is clearly not alien to the formerly high Palestinian fertility rate and its subsequent severe plunge as of the year The Palestine of the Occupied Territories The West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip and its bits and pieces remaining in Israel Israeli Arabs — this is an archetypical case of interrelation between nationalism, conflict and fertility rate.

Although already very high in despite exceptional schooling and urbanisation levels , Palestinian fertility increased even more during the first Intifada. The fertility rate surpassed 7 children beginning in , culminating in 7. Palestinian women had become the markers of national borders with the duty of producing the children the nation demanded of them. It was a — bygone — era in which Yasser Arafat discovered that the womb of Palestinian women was a biological weapon and implored couples to have 12 children, 2 for themselves and 10 for the struggle.

The withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip in has left a disputed territory par excellence, the West Bank, where demography has become a trump card.

The fertility rate of Palestinians remained constant, at about 6 children, up to the year , before suffering a severe plunge to 3. The 2nd Intifada was not the only factor in this plunge, as the fall in fertility rate preceded it. The subsequent years only confirmed a movement that had begun before the uprising. This plunge has economic causes: the sealing off of Palestinian Territories and consequent difficulty of circulation precipitated the plunge in the standard of living.

Nonetheless, the decrease in fertility goes back to , preceding the major deterioration of economic conditions. Other causes came into play. In this context, the weight of numbers is fundamental and demography is an integral part of the conflict, such that the decrease in fertility rate has strong political connotations. It reveals the divergence between individual and community values.

For the Palestinians, demographic transition does not have the same connotations as for the Moroccans, Egyptians or even Syrians. In Palestine, the transition entails a definite political risk, because, in contrast to the Palestinians, the Israelis occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem retain all of the assets of demographic dynamism. Their fertility rate is on the rise though it is already very high 4.

Immigration remains stable and mortality very low. This high fertility rate is due to the expansionist, nationalist and religious views predominating among settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as to the billions of dollars pouring into the settlements that lighten the load of child rearing and thus reward pro-family choices.

By , the Palestinian fertility rate, which had collapsed to 4. Another — emotionally loaded — matter of concern: Jerusalem. But in , the fertility rate of the , Palestinians in the Holy City was surpassed for the first time — though by a fraction of a decimal point — by that of the , Jews: 3. In official proposals or in conversation with the citizens at large, the demographic issue immediately takes on a strong emotional bent — a heritage of the past which continues to weigh upon the Syrian mindset.

The Israeli-Arab Wars have accentuated the populationist impulse, numbers being promoted as a strategic factor in a very long-term conflict. Nationalism and demography go hand in hand.

In Syria, the demand for children has always been high. The State has never needed to intervene. Syrians unanimously opt for large families 4. Syria was and remains one of the rare countries where the ideal number of children is higher than the effective number. Demographic evolution will be slow here. There is a dilemma. The most pro-regime communities and regions — the Alawites in the coastal mountains 2. The administration knows it is useless to play the battle of numbers, the war of cradles, for its community of origin and the communities backing it.