Abstract
The Arab world, which consists of the 22 member states of the Arab League, is undergoing a rapid transition in demographics, including fertility, mortality, and migration. Comprising a distinctive geographic region spread across West Asia and North East Africa and unified by the Arabic language, these states share common values and characteristics despite having diverse economic and political conditions. The demographic lag (high fertility and low mortality) that characterizes the Arab world is unique, but the present trend of declining fertility, combined with the relatively low mortality, brings about significant changes in its population size. This research aimed to: (i) assess the population growth in the Arab world over 3 time periods, (ii) explore its components, and (iii) understand its public health impact. Data from the International Data Base (IDB) of the U.S. Census Bureau for 3 time periods (1992, 2002, and 2012) in 21 countries of the Arab world were analyzed by dividing them into four geographic sectors, namely, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), West Asia, Maghreb, and the Nile Valley African Horn. The population of the Arab world has grown considerably due to both natural growth and migration. The immigration is pronounced, especially into resource-intensive GCC nations, not only from East Asian and Central African countries but also from resource-thrifty (limited-resource) Arab nations. The migrations within, as well as outside, the Arab world reveal an interesting demographic phenomenon that requires further research: migration flows and trends. However, the transformations in public health statistics related to mortality—the impact of demographic changes—depict a new era in the Arab world.
Highlights
The Arab world has been undergoing transitions [1,2,3] in all fields of life—social, economic, and health—due to changing demographic conditions [4,5]
The Nile Valley African Horn accounts for 39.3 percent of the total population of the Arab world
Gender-wise, the male population increased more than the female population throughout the period; this is explained by the intense male-dominated labor migration from East Asia and Central Africa, especially into Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states [11], which may alter in the near future with the changing labor laws
Summary
The Arab world has been undergoing transitions [1,2,3] in all fields of life—social, economic, and health—due to changing demographic conditions [4,5]. The demographic transition theory propounds that a large increase in population is due to the gap between birth and death rates during the early stages of industrialization, urbanization, and socioeconomic transformation; this seems to play a role in what is happening in the Arab world today [1,7,9]. Having two thirds of the known petroleum reserves worldwide and given the fast pace of its modernization, urbanization, and economic transformation, the region experiences a rapid growth in population [1], due partly to a natural increase and partly to migration; the latter refers to both internal migration, including inter-Arab movements [5] within the region, and employment-oriented migration from elsewhere [6,11]
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