Baby boom bust: UAE women fertility rate halves

The UAE fertility rate has more than halved during the past 30 years to the lowest level in the Gulf region, according to latest United Nations study.

The World's Women 2010 report said that births have decreased from 5.2 per woman in 1980-1985 to 1.9 in the last five years. Though fertility rates have halved in most of the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia has the highest with 3.2 births per woman followed by Oman (3.1), Qatar (2.4), Bahrain (2.3) and Kuwait (2.2).

The report ranked the UAE among fertility under replacement level countries. Replacement level fertility is the level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next.

According to UN statistics, 45-day maternity leave in the UAE is the lowest in the world.

Fertility is steadily declining in all regions of the world, though it still remains high in some regions of Africa, it said.

The data showed that the number of men is more than the double of women population. There are 204 men for 100 women in the country because of the large inflow of sizeable foreign-born labour force which is predominantly made up of men.

The men’s ratio to women is second highest in the Gulf after Qatar which is 307 men for 100 women.

It said the share of women migrants in the oil-wealthy Gulf States such as the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is less than one third of the total number of migrants as the bulk of the foreign-born population are men of working age. It said share of women in total immigrant stock is the highest in the UAE globally at approximately 28 per cent, followed by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It said women’s proportion of teachers at the tertiary level is below 30 per cent in several Arab countries including UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Jordan. Even in Northern America and Europe (except Eastern Europe), women’s proportion of the teachers in tertiary education was significantly lower than 50 per cent. The women’s share among teaching staff in the UAE is highest in primary schools at 85 per cent followed by 55 per cent in secondary and 27 per cent in tertiary.

The UN statistics showed that population of men and women reached 4.7 million from just 1.01 million in 1980. The emirate’s total adult population was 69,000 in 1950.

The figures also showed that literacy rate among female is also higher than male. Around 91 per cent women are literate against 89 per cent of men; among the youth, 97 per cent females are literate against 94 per cent of young men.

The UAE women’s share in lower or single house is 23 per cent which is higher than most of the G7 countries such US (17%), UK (20%), France (18%) and Japan (9%).

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