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Algeria

Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is the second-largest country in Africa, stretching from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea down into the Sahara. It became a socialist state in 1962, after winning independence from France, its former colonial ruler. Arabic is the only official language, though Berber dialects have received some recognition, and French is still used in education and in certain media. In the 1970s, improvements in the health system increased the fertility rate to 7–8 children per mother, though the rate has since decreased dramatically due to changes in society, reaching a yearly birth rate of 1.82 births/woman in 2008, with the number of children born per woman in her childbearing years projected to be 2.38 by 2010.

Population Growth and Allowances

Before 1980, there was no official birth control program in Algeria; most people lived in extended families, patriarchal and patrilineal, with an emphasis on producing as many children—particularly sons—as possible. The rapid demographic growth, however, led the government to establish a family planning program with the emphasis on “birth spacing” and family well-being. Maternal and Infant Protection Centers were created to provide advice and contraceptives to interested women. Religious authorities found birth control compatible with Islam as long as it was voluntary, and included neither abortion nor sterilization. By 1989, when the United Nations Fund for Population Activities set up a new program of education and health care in Algeria, it was estimated that 35 percent of Algerian women of childbearing age were using contraception. By 1990 the infant mortality rate had decreased to 67 per 1,000 live births. A system of family allowances for certain employed persons, begun by the French in 1943, has gradually been extended to more categories of workers, but still offers little for single or divorced mothers. In 2008, the population reached approximately 34 million, almost equally divided between males and females.

More than half of university students are women. Though women now represent some 70 percent of lawyers and 60 percent of judges in Algeria, as well as predominating in medicine, the movement of women into the general workforce is slow, in part because overall unemployment is high. Official statistics state that 25 percent of Algerians were out of work in 2004, for example, and some observers think that 50 percent of males under 30 are without full-time employment today. Many men immigrate to other countries to find work. In the cities, large groups of young men without jobs lounge in the cafés and plazas. In April 2007, a conference on women in the workplace was held in Algiers, concentrating on issues such as access to employment and sexual harassment on the job. Women currently make up only 15–20 percent of the workforce. Childcare providers are in short supply, and the recent increase in nuclear families living apart from relatives makes it difficult for mothers to work outside the home.

Societal Standards for Algerian Mothers

Algerian women are expected to be quiet, modest, decorous, virgins until marriage, and faithful wives afterward. A new bride traditionally lives with her husband in or near the bridegroom's family home; there is frequently a difficult relationship with her mother-in-law. New mothers, since they gain status by producing boys, favor their sons and often nurse them longer than they do daughters. The tie between mother and son remains warmly intimate, and is often the closest connection in the family. Even when a married woman has a house or apartment she is, as L. Massignon remarks, “a stranger in her own home,” because there is no community property between husband and wife in Algerian law.

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