Iraq: SOCIETY

SOCIETY



Population: In 2004 Iraq’s population was estimated at 25,375,000, and the estimated growth rate was 2.7 percent per year. Average population density was 58.5 persons per square kilometer. The population occupies predominantly the alluvial plain and the northeast, leaving the western and southern desert regions very sparsely inhabited. The most densely populated governorate (province) is Baghdad, near the northern end of the alluvial plain, followed by Ninawa, in the western section of the uplands region. Urbanization has been a strong demographic trend; between 1985 and 2005, the proportion of the population in urban areas increased from 69 percent to 79 percent. Between 2003 and 2005, an estimated 700,000 Iraqis fled into Syria, which received by far the most Iraqi refugees in that period. Earlier, an estimated 1 million Shias fled from southern Iraq to Iran to avoid persecution. An estimated 1.5 to 2 million Iraqis were internally displaced by military operations between 2002 and 2004.



Demography: In 2004 an estimated 40.3 percent of the population was 14 years of age or younger, and an estimated 3 percent was 65 years of age or older. Slightly more than 49 percent of the population was female. The birthrate was 33.1 births per 1,000 population, and the death rate was 5.7 per 1,000 population. The infant mortality rate was 52.7 per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy for men was 67.1 years, and for women 69.5 years. The fertility rate was 4.4 births per woman.



Ethnic Groups: In 2004 an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population was Arab and 15 to 20 percent, Kurdish. Other significant minority groups, together constituting less than 5 percent of the population, are Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Turkmens.



Languages: The official languages of Iraq are Standard Arabic and Kurdish, which is official in regions whose population has a Kurdish majority. The two main regional dialects of Arabic spoken in Iraq are Mesopotamian (spoken by about 11.5 million) and North Mesopotamian (spoken by about 5.4 million). Other languages spoken in Iraq are Assyrian, Azeri, and Chaldean.



Religion: Some 97 percent of Iraq’s population is Muslim. Of that number, 60 to 65 percent are Shia, and 32 to 37 percent are Sunni. In 2003 an estimated 700,000 to 900,000 Christians were in Iraq, mostly Assyrians belonging to the Chaldean Catholic Church. Although the Shias have constituted more than half of Iraq’s population throughout the twentieth century, until 2005 all governments excluded them from proportional political power. The Kurds, predominantly Sunni but ethnically different and of a less militant religious orientation, did not share this political advantage with their Arab Sunni coreligionists. Throughout its existence, the regime of Saddam Husayn systematically repressed the Shias. In 1991 a Shia revolt in southern Iraq brought mass executions and further alienation, and in the post-Husayn era, the Shia-Sunni split remains a key political factor.



Education and Literacy: Following the regime change of 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority, with substantial international assistance, undertook a complete reform of Iraq’s education system. Among immediate goals were the removal of previously pervasive Baathist ideology from curricula and substantial increases in teacher salaries and training programs, which the Husayn regime neglected in the 1990s. The new Ministry of Education appointed a national curriculum commission to revise curricula in all subject areas. Because of under-funding by the Husayn regime, in 2003 an estimated 80 percent of Iraq’s 15,000 school buildings needed rehabilitation and lacked basic sanitary facilities, and most schools lacked libraries and laboratories.



In the 1990s, school attendance decreased drastically as education funding was cut and economic conditions forced children into the workforce. After the regime change, the system included about 6 million students in kindergarten through twelfth grade and 300,000 teachers and administrators. Education is mandatory only through the sixth grade, after which a national examination determines the possibility of continuing into the upper grades. Although a vocational track is available to those who do not pass the exam, few students elect that option because of its poor quality. Boys and girls generally attend separate schools beginning with seventh grade. In 2005 obstacles to further reform were poor security conditions in many areas, a centralized system that lacked accountability for teachers and administrators, and the isolation in which the system functioned for the previous 30 years. No private schools exist. Prior to the regime change of 2003, some 240,000 persons were enrolled in institutions of higher education. In 2000 the literacy rate was 55 percent for males and 23 percent for females.



Health: During its last decade, the Husayn regime cut public health funding by 90 percent, contributing to a substantial deterioration in health care. During that period, maternal mortality increased by nearly three times, and the salaries of medical personnel decreased drastically. Medical facilities, which in 1980 were among the best in the Middle East, deteriorated. Conditions were especially serious in the south, where malnutrition and water-borne diseases became common in the 1990s. The conflict of 2003 destroyed an estimated 12 percent of hospitals and Iraq’s two main public health laboratories. In 2004 some improvements occurred. Using substantial international funds, some 240 hospitals and 1,200 primary health centers were operating, shortages of some medical materials had been alleviated, the training of medical personnel had begun, and the inoculation of children was widespread. However, sanitary conditions in hospitals remained unsatisfactory, trained personnel and medications were in short supply, and health care remained largely unavailable in regions where violent insurgency continued. The 2004 budget of the interim government allotted US$1 billion for health care; that figure was to rise to US$1.5 billion in 2006.



In the late 1990s, Iraq’s infant mortality rates more than doubled. Because treatment and diagnosis of cancer and diabetes decreased in the 1990s, complications and deaths resulting from those diseases increased drastically in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. The collapse of sanitation infrastructure in 2003 led to an increased incidence of cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever. Malnutrition and childhood diseases, which had increased significantly in the late 1990s, continued to spread. The incidence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Iraq was estimated in 2003 at about 0.1 percent of the population, mainly from blood transfusions. Although HIV carries a distinct stigma in Iraq, statistics from the early 2000s are considered reliable because the Husayn regime did extensive testing. As of early 2005, more recent figures were not available.

Welfare: Like the health system, Iraq’s welfare system, one of the best in the Middle East in the 1980s, suffered drastic funding cuts in the 1990s as the regime shifted funds to other priorities. Beginning in the 1990s, damage to the economy by international sanctions drastically reduced the standard of living and left a large portion of Iraqi society in poverty, despite the United Nations Oil-for-Food mitigation program established in 1997. Average wages decreased drastically in the late 1990s. In the early 2000s, an estimated 60 percent of Iraqis were dependent on monthly food rations (for which all Iraqis were eligible beginning in 1990) from the Public Distribution System (PDS). In early 2005, that system and subsidized fuel distribution remained the main elements of the social safety net; nationwide shortages of sugar, milk, and ghee (a type of butter) were reported at that time. A plan to monetize or reduce the PDS rations was under consideration in 2005. In 2003 the occupying forces and the interim government began establishing a permanent system to support the poor and the unemployed. As of early 2005, however, such a system was not yet in place, although more than 30 percent of the workforce reportedly was unemployed in late 2004.