The Arab Spring’s Riskiest Legacy May Be Egypt’s Baby Boom

Sabah Fouad was pregnant with her fourth child when a neighbor beat her up on a Cairo street in a dispute over money she owed, and she miscarried. Even with the pain, the 32-year-old confesses she felt relieved. Fouad, who works part time as a maid, can’t remember the last time she was able to buy meat or chicken for the children she already has. “Secretly I was happy,” she says. “God forgive me.”

Higher birthrates may prove the most lasting of many unforeseen consequences of Egypt’s Arab Spring. Egyptians took to their bedrooms after the February 2011 overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, a period in which joyfulness soon gave way to chaos. The country added about 11 million people—the population of Greece—in a span of just seven years, as fertility surged to 3.5 children per woman rather than continuing its gradual decline to the government’s target of 2.1, the so-called replacement rate.