This summer, impressions based on simple direct observation have increased among citizens, all pointing to the economic situation of Algerians, which has deteriorated this year with its various repercussions. Among these impressions based on personal experience, which still need verification and support from national statistics, even if they come later, is the notion that Algerians did not marry much this year, as they used to every summer. They did not hold those celebrations for which they were known during the summer season, which Algerians still prefer for organizing their celebrations, following the rural communities of the Mediterranean region.
Thus, the period between the end of the harvest season and the wait for the planting season at the beginning of autumn, a time when professional activity decreases, is used by families to organize their weddings, allowing family movements. However, this has unfortunately been associated in recent years with a significant increase in road accidents, turning Algerians’ joys into funerals.
The absence of celebrations this summer in the Algerian summer season is not the only indicator, according to this rather pessimistic view. There is also the observed decrease in the number of Algerians on the beaches, which has declined according to these observations, reported by Algerians on social media and during their group meetings, affecting many tourist areas in the peak vacation season.
Before the summer, many Algerians noticed this reluctance, which marked Algerian behavior when it came to slaughtering the Eid sacrifice this year, after the crazy rise in sheep prices. This prevailing interpretation focused only on the economic and financial level of this religious rite, without considering other levels such as those related to the demographic changes that Algerian society has been experiencing for decades. These changes have increased demand for pilgrimage and Umrah, in a society where these practices were once reserved for the elderly, not the youth as has been the case in recent decades for many Algerians.
This happens at a time when Algerian society is experiencing a rapid acceleration in its multiple demographic transformations, confirmed this year by the digital data published by the National Statistics Office, such as those related to the rise in divorce rates. One marriage out of three ends in divorce in 2023, while the demand for divorce has increased from financially independent Algerian women who are dissatisfied with the marital relationship.
Some conservative opinions attribute this to the factor of the large legal freedom granted to women in Algeria to break marital ties, in a society that has seen a significant improvement in life expectancy rates (81 years for women and 78.2 years for men), making Algerians the longest-living on the African continent, which inevitably increases the duration of sexual life outside of marriage for Algerian women and men, with all the imaginable implications, in a society with a form of formal and hypocritical social religiosity, and where opportunities for entertainment are rare outside socially accepted norms.
A society that is simultaneously undergoing a rapid demographic transition, as shown by many statistical indicators, due to several factors that have not been sufficiently studied in terms of their medium and long-term impacts, such as the clear benefit of education at various levels, particularly higher education for girls, and entry into the labor market for women, whose age at first marriage has significantly increased, reaching up to 30 years for women and over 35 years for men, while birth rates have decreased, as confirmed by this year’s published statistics, which recorded a lower number of births since 2010, at less than 900,000 newborns annually.
Indicators of rapid demographic transition lead to a certain change in the consumption behavior of Algerian women and men, moving away from the values of the extended family and its consumption culture, as evidenced by the abstention from slaughtering the sacrifice this year, and even the absence of annual family vacations. Some observations from many popular tourist regions confirm this. Meanwhile, there is a greater focus on the quality of services provided, and Algerians are no longer accepting the remnants of the period of tourist scarcity, from which Algeria could quickly emerge, given the significant national investments in the tourism sector, if we take the number of constructed and planned hotels as a single indicator, which could prompt decision-makers to open the borders to international tourism if the domestic market is saturated and demand decreases.
In contrast, a more rational consumption pattern centered on the individual rather than the family is expected, as can be seen in specific investments such as housing and individual cars for men and women, whose single status has extended. This has turned this type of consumption into an essential life necessity, in a young society where opportunities for life and joy are limited. A society that has not yet completely abandoned collective family practices when it comes to entertainment in summer, which could be diversified for wider social groups, thanks to the development of air and sea transport prices.
This better aligns with the increasing age of Algerians and the diversity of forms and modes of work among Algerian men and women, as some indicators start to show, away from the dominant bureaucratic administrative model represented by the national state. With all that this could entail in terms of individual holiday and entertainment behaviors. In a country that benefits from natural diversity between the north (the sea) and the south (the desert), which facilitates the provision of diverse tourist opportunities that are not limited to summer as is currently the case.
Awaiting the emergence of this “Algerian self” that these demographic transformations are paving the way for in other fields such as the cultural domain, which is measured by the dominance of the novel as an artistic expression, as is beginning to appear in Algeria, and the political domain, expressed by the popular movement for a long time, with the distinctive participation of youth of both genders in demonstrations, which have emerged from various regions of the country, with the diversity of their demands, focusing on qualitative political levels, considering this as a solution to the problematic change of the political system in Algeria, which the young generation of Algerians resulting from these demographic transformations no longer accepts.
Nasser Jabi, Algerian writer (Al-Quds Al-Arabi).