Tunisia has the highest percentage of women using contraceptives among Arab and African nations, with 62.5% of women of reproductive age. Moreover, abortion is also more common among Tunisian women than all other women in the region, reaching up to 35,000 abortions per year.

Tunisia has the highest percentage of women using contraceptives among Arab and African nations, with 62.5% of women of reproductive age. Moreover, abortion is also more common among Tunisian women than all other women in the region, reaching up to 35,000 abortions per year.

These figures emerged from a recent study conducted by the Office of Family and Population in Tunisia, a government agency that supervises demographics.

The new study has raised several questions about the social factors that drive women to refrain from childbearing and the potential impact on the composition of society. Is this behaviour an inevitable result of more than 60 years of birth control policy set in motion by Habib Bourguiba, the first president of Tunisia, who ruled the country from 1957 to 1987? Or are there other factors such as modernization and high cost of living that have impacted on the reproductive behaviour of Tunisian women?

Historic dimension

Looking at the historic reasons why so many Tunisian women are keen to regulate reproduction, it seems clear that the high demand for contraceptives is the result of the birth control programme implemented in 1962. That was when the government created the National Office of Family Planning, which has played a central role in spreading awareness and providing women with the necessary facilities, such as the distribution of free contraceptives and the provision of financial incentives to reduce reproduction.

President Bourguiba was the main engine behind this programme, putting all his rhetorical talents into raising awareness of the importance of the programme and consistently reminding people of the importance of birth control and warning of the dangers of population explosion. This has limited demographic growth, which in Tunisia today does not exceed 1%, compared to 2.5% in Syria and 2.8% in Jordan, two countries that had similar population figures as Tunisia in the early 1960’s – roughly four million.

In the eighties, the concept of birth control changed, and there was an effort to integrate family health with child health by encouraging families to spread out pregnancies. In the nineties, the family planning phase started to relying on contraceptives, a programme supplemented by an emphasis on prenatal and postnatal care.

Tunisia’s entire family planning programme was predicated on freedom. Women were given the freedom to choose reproduction dates, determine the number of children they wanted, and the use of contraceptives was stipulated by international conventions. This programme had great benefits on the health of women and children.

After the 2011 revolution, the Constituent Assembly (Tunisia’s parliament), which had an Islamist majority (the Ennahda Movement), witnessed arguments on abortion rights that escalated into screaming matches between Islamist and secular MPs.

In January 2013, when the assembly came to discuss the civil rights chapter of the country’s new constitution, a number of secular MPs objected to the absence of the right to abortion and free sexual relations outside marriage, raising the ire of Islamist MPs. The debates ended with an agreement to maintain the freedoms stipulated in the 1956 personal status law.

The danger of ageing

Although the family planning policy adopted in Tunisia has played a big role and had a significant impact on family welfare, improving the economic conditions of families and promoting women’s ability to work, the demand for contraceptives and the increasing number of abortions have raised other long-term concerns.

Experts have begun to fear demographic ageing in Tunisia, a problem faced by a number of European countries for several years that has led them to adopt policies to encourage childbearing.

According to the latest census conducted in 2014, the number of Tunisians has now reached about 10.8 million people, with population growth has stopped at 1.03% – while it was in the region of 2.48% in the 1980s. The census also pointed to a decrease in the fertility rate in Tunisia. In the 1970’s, this rate stood at around 6%, though in the current year it reached only 4.05%.

Moreover, the percentage of single women above the age of 50 has risen from 1.5% in the 1970s to 9% now, while the number of educated and working women has increased to reach 32%.

Some researchers insist it is extremely important to maintain the current level of population growth in Tunisia, because it is important for the renewal of generations. Statistics indicate that the percentage of people above 60 in Tunisia is already 11.5%.

Some experts have called for a change to social policy in Tunisia by implementing a series of measures to encourage childbearing. These include increasing children’s grants, supporting kindergartens from the state budget or from private associations, increasing state support for education, and encouraging young people to marry by providing them with grants and soft loans without interest, and providing hostels for married students, as is the case in France and Germany.