People

Population

In 2006 Iraq’s population was estimated at 26,783,000, and the estimated growth rate was 2.7 percent per year. A general census was scheduled for late 2007. Average population density was 61.9 persons per square kilometer in 2006. 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. In the 1990s and early 2000s, an estimated 1 million Shias fled from southern Iraq to Iran to avoid persecution. Migration from Iraq to neighboring countries increased sharply with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. In 2005 as an estimated 650,000 Iraqi refugees moved to Jordan and Syria; the latter received the great majority of the refugees, as it had since 2003. In 2006 the government estimated that 100,000 Iraqis had been internally displaced by sectarian violence.

Demography

In 2006 an estimated 39.7 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 32 births per 1,000 population, and the death rate was 5.4 per 1,000 population. The infant mortality rate was 48.6 per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy was 67.8 years for men and 70.3 years for women. The fertility rate was 4.2 births per woman.

Ethnic Groups

In 2006 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, were Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Turkmens.

Languages

According to the constitution of 2005, the two official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, which is official in regions with a Kurdish majority. Turkmen and Assyrian neo-Aramaic also are official languages in regions where they are spoken. 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 in Iraq are Armenian, Azeri, and Chaldean neo-Aramaic.

Religion

The constitution of 2005 guarantees freedom of religion but specifies that no law may be enacted that is contrary to the teachings of Islam, the state religion. Some 97 percent of Iraq’s population is Muslim. Of that number, 60 to 65 percent is Shia and 32 to 37 percent Sunni. 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 Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein systematically repressed the Shias. In 1991 a Shia revolt in southern Iraq brought mass executions and further alienation, and in the post-Hussein era, the Shia–Sunni split remains a key political factor. The Kurds are predominantly Sunni but ethnically different from the Arab Sunnis and of a less militant religious orientation.

In 2003 an estimated 700,000 to 900,000 Christians were in Iraq, mostly belonging to the Eastern-rite Chaldean Catholic Church. However, between the late 1980s and 2004 an estimated 500,000 Christians left Iraq; in the post-Hussein era, the exodus accelerated because terrorists often attacked Christian targets. In late 2004, an estimated 40,000 Christians left after a series of bombings.

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 had been neglected in the 1990s. The new Ministry of Education appointed a national curriculum commission to revise curricula in all subject areas. Because of underfunding by the regime of Saddam Hussein, 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 includedabout 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 2006 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 had 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 2003 the literacy rate was 56 percent for males and 24 percent for females.

Health

During its last decade, the regime of Saddam Hussein cut public health funding by 90 percent, contributing to a substantial deterioration in health care. During that period, maternal mortality increased nearly threefold, 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. In 2005 the incidence of typhoid, cholera, malaria, and tuberculosis was higher in Iraq than in comparable countries. 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. In 2005 there were 15 hospital beds, 6.3 doctors, and 11 nurses per 10,000 population. Plans called for US$1.5 billion of the national budget to be spent on health care 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 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. In 2006 some 73 percent of cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Iraq originated with blood transfusions and 16 percent from sexual transmission. The AIDS Research Centre in Baghdad, where most cases have been diagnosed, provides free treatment, and testing is mandatory for foreigners entering Iraq. Between October 2005 and January 2006, some 26 new cases were identified, bringing the official total to 261 since 1986.

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 dramatically reduced the standard of living and left a large portion of Iraqi society in poverty, despite the United Nations Oil-for-Food 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 foodrations (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. The PDS was inefficient and expensive, costing the government US$4 billion in 2005 because it continued to support all Iraqis regardless of income. In 2006 international donors sought to improve the targeting, and thus the cost-benefit ratio, of the PDS. According to an Iraqi labor expert, in 2005 more than 60 percent of the workforce was unemployed.

Source: Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Country Profile