Tunisia XXXX [ @entity249 ].

@entity1 @entity249
Tunisia, the smallest North African country in size, has recently published the results of its part of the @entity249 ( @entity249 ) taken in 1978. About 1/2 of this Missouri-sized country consists of arid and semiarid desert, with well-irrigated fertile areas in the north. The country, which has a population of about 7 million, must import large quantities of food each year and also suffers from widespread unemployment. In 1964, the government was among the earliest to announce a policy to reduce the rate of population growth and Tunisia now has 1 of the lowest birth rates of the African continent (33 births/1000 population) although it is still moderately high. Part of the reason for the birth rate decline has been a risking age at marriage; the legal minimum was fixed at 17 years for @entity1 and 20 for @entity1 by a 1964 law. The Tunisia @entity249 indicates that, of @entity1 20-24 in 1978, 56% had not yet married, a large increase from the 27% of 1966. The mean age at 1st marriage for females was 24 in 1978, very high by less developed country standards. It may be that the fertility-lowering impetus from rising age at marriage has been spent (this measure cannot rise indefinitely): Tunisia's total fertility rate (TFR), the average number of @entity1 / @entity1 , dropped from 7.1 @entity1 in 1966 to 5.7 in 1976, but the decrease has tapered off somewhat since. The TFR appears to have dropped to 5.2 as of 1981. When asked how many @entity1 they would like to have, the @entity1 surveyed gave 4.2 @entity1 , on average, as their "ideal" number. This number is, of course, considerably above that needed to ultimately stop population growth (about 2.1-2.5 @entity1 / @entity1 ). Contraceptive use in Tunisia is quite high by developing country standards; much of this is due to the efficient network of government-sponsored clinics. About 44% of the @entity1 exposed to pregnancy were practicing an efficient form of family planning with the pill or sterilization accounting for most of that number (22 and 20% respectively). Nonetheless, traditions which still favor 3-5 @entity1 and some possible loss of momentum from a rising age at marriage may cause future fertility declines to be slower than in the recent past. Tunisia does present an interesting case of a country maintaining a government program to reduce population growth as an overall part of the country's development efforts.
