Manama: The total population of Saudi Arabia in 2016 was 31,742,308, up from 27,236,156 in 2010, official figures indicate.
The figures released by the General Authority for Statistics showed a 16.54 per cent increase at an annual average of 2.54 per cent.
Males represent 57.44 per cent of the total population while females make up 42.56 per cent. This is a slight change from the 2010 figures when men made up 57 per cent of the population and women 43 per cent.
The number of Saudi citizens in 2016 was 20,064,970, up from 18,776,510 six years ago — an increase of 1,288,460 (6.68 per cent).
Meanwhile, Saudi men make up 50.96 per cent of the local population, while Saudi women make up 49.04 per cent.
This marks little change from 2010 when men represented 51 per cent of the population and women 49 per cent.
According to the figures, 97.2 per cent of Saudi women got married by the age of 32. Marriage remains a strong institution in the country.
The authority said that the number of Saudi women who were unmarried past the age of 32 was 227,860.
For most conservative Saudis, women should get married at an early age, preferably in their late teens.
Reports say that around two million Saudi men and women are not married, and a study released last year by the Scientific Endowment at King Abdul Aziz University (KAU) said that the high cost of ceremonies and dowries was among six major reasons for delayed marriages in Saudi Arabia.
The study said that the choice of a spouse based on the family’s criteria and not on personal standards, low tolerance about the social status of the potential spouse’s family and the impact of other couples’ failed marriages were also among the top reasons behind the figure of two million Saudi men and women still not married.
The uncompromising insistence on specific conditions and the misleading information about the concept of marriages were the other reasons for late or no marriages at all, the study said.
