Gulf population growth rate highest in world

The Middle East, particularly the Gulf, has long been a region characterised by high rates of population growth compared with any other region, even surpassing Sub-Saharan Africa.

In fact, the population growth rate in the Middle East and North Africa region is nearly twice that of East Asia and four times that of the world's high income nations.

The population growth rate in the region's six states has been among the highest in the world during the last few decades. Low mortality rates along with high fertility rates and the growing number of expatriates have contributed to such an increase.

Thus, growth rates reached a peak of three per cent around 1980, while the growth rate of the world as a whole reached its peak of two per cent more than a decade earlier.

But since 1990, the total fertility rate is estimated to have declined in the Gulf countries during a period of slightly more than one decade, decreasing by 1.2 births per woman in Bahrain, 0.8 births per woman in Kuwait, 0.9 births per woman in Qatar, 1.3 births per woman in Oman, 1.1 births per woman in Saudi Arabia, and 1.2 births per woman in the UAE, according to a World Health Report 2001 issued recently by WHO.

Despite the decline, fertility rates are still high in some Gulf countries. In 2000, Saudi Arabia and Oman had 5.7 and 5.8 births per woman respectively.

The rate of natural increase, that represents the population change based on birth and mortality rates regardless of migration, was estimated last year at 1.9 per cent in Bahrain , 1.8 per cent in Kuwait, 3.5 per cent in Oman , 2.7 per cent in Qatar, 2.9 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 1.4 per cent in the UAE.