Population growth in the Middle East is expected to decline after more than 50 years of sharp rises, according to a report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Mirroring trends in other areas of the world, birth rates are expected to fall as urbanization and contraception become commonplace, but also as women have greater access to education and employment.

As the report makes clear, there is no question that the population drop raises a new set of challenges. Countries in the region will have to adapt first to a wave of young employment-seekers, many of whom want to find premium civil service jobs, and then a second wave of elderly retirees. Yet the slow-down of population also might allay some fears that the Middle East is overpopulated beyond its resource base, with arable land and, most severely, water always a concern. As writer Nina Hjerpset Ostlie explains in an editorial on population growth, the need to address issues of overpopulation and resource use in the Middle East has been brewing since populations first began to expand in the 1950’s. She worries that European leaders will be particularly hostile toward Muslim immigrants who will be forced to emigrate from their home countries into Western Europe due to problems stemming from overpopulation. Likewise, she cites population growth as a taboo subject for politicians, saying:

Every decade the growth of mankind far exceeds the present number of humans in Europe from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Range. How many decades can the globe’s environment sustain this? In this situation, will it be at all possible to save the globe without limiting the growth of populations, for example like the Mullahs’ measures in Iran? But what politician can get away with saying something like that?

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