Qatar's Statistics

Huge strides in education, health care
Sunday, 23 October 2011 03:12

DOHA: Life expectancy in Qatar has been showing an upward trend, official figures released yesterday suggest.

In 2010, life increased to 78.2 years from 75.6 in 2004, says the Permanent Population Committee (PPP) in its annual report for 2010-11.

Likewise, the number of doctors per 10,000 people also rose to 26.4 last year, the PPP said in its report for October 2010 to October 2011, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported yesterday.

There have been tremendous improvements in public healthcare as maternal and infant mortality rates have also come down in the past few years.

The maternal mortality rate which was 16 per 100,000 some five years ago, climbed down to 10.3 last year.

Similarly, the rate of infant mortality which was 8.6 per 1,000 in 2004, slid down to 6.7 last year, the PPP report said.

There were 10 hospitals in the country last year while the number of primary health centers was 30. Private clinics totaled 310.

There were 2,034 hospital beds in the country in 2008 with the number slightly improving to 2,091 in 2010.

Significantly, water consumption in the country has also come down from 166.7 cubic meters per person in 2007 to 126.1 cubic meters per person in 2010.

Likewise, electricity consumption climbed down to 9.50 kilo vats (kv) per hour per person in 2010 from 18.80 kv in 2007, with the PPP attributing the fall to rising population. Yet, the consumption per capita of electricity was one of the highest in the world, the PPP report noted.

There were 578 schools in the country and the total number of students was 180,000 in 2010, up from 131,000 in 2004.

Qatar University had 7,337 students on its rolls in 2002 with the number nearly doubling to 13,939 last year.

There were 67 training centers of all types in the country last year, the PPP report said.

The Committee said the demographic imbalance could be controlled to the extent of 50 percent from an earlier 46 percent.

The imbalance in the population of workforce could be checked to the extent of 33 percent only, the PPP said blaming the private sector for what it said was its reliance on cheap and unskilled foreign hands.

There were 310 males for every 100 females in the country. The PPP said focus should be put on waging awareness campaigns to remove the evil of dowry (mehr) from the Qatari community and encourage the marriage of young widows and divorcees.

Qatar’s population in 1970 was a mere 111,000 which has risen to 1.5 million currently.

Nearly two-thirds of Qatar’s population of marriageable age (above 15 years) was single.

There has been 287 percent growth in the workforce in the country since 2004. The number of workers then was 444, 133 with the figure soaring to an incredible 1.27 million recently.

Some 75 percent of expatriate workforce was semi-skilled and unskilled in 2010, while female workforce comprised 12.5 percent of their total population.

Some 11 percent of the foreign workforce consisted of domestic help, the PPP report said.

Working women in the Qatari community comprised 33.3 percent of their total population in 2004 with the percentage improving to 36.6 in 2010.

As for senior citizens, there had been three percent rise in their number in the Qatari community while the increase was marginal among expatriates (0.4 percent).

The Peninsula

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