Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - According to a study released by the Department of Statistics on Wednesday, July 10, 2019, the population of Jordan rose from about 586,000 people in 1952 to 10.309 million until the end of 2018.

According to a report published on the United Nation's official website, the world's population is currently estimated at 7.7 billion people and is expected to reach 8.6 billion by 2030, 9.8 billion by 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100 based on the population prospects, which assume lower birth rates in countries with large families.

China and India rank first and second in terms of population, respectively, with more than 35% of the world population live in those countries. However, Jordan ranks 91th among the world's most populous countries.

Jordan witnessed sharp demographic transitions during the second half of the last century that affected the age structure of the population, the study released by the Statistics Department indicated.

Jordan's population rose from 586,000 in 1952 to 10.309 million until the end of 2018.

The population growth rate in Jordan declined significantly during the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium.

The study showed that the population growth rate dropped from 4.4% during 1979-1994, to 2.6% during 1994-2004. However, during 2004-2015, the rate increased to 5.3% due to the political situation witnessed in the region, which caused hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees to enter Jordan since 2011.

Jordan has achieved a remarkable improvement in the health sector during the last decades of the last century and the current decade of the new millennium, resulting in a reduction in death rates, which lead to a substantial increase in life expectancy to 73.3 years for both sexes in 2018.

The results of the last population census showed that the proportion of young people (less than 15 years) accounted for 34.3% of the total population in the Kingdom, while the proportion of those aged 15-64 years accounted for 62%.

However, the percentage of elderly people (over 65 years of age) reached 3.7%.

The results also revealed that the dependency ratio (population not in the work-force) was 61.4 in 2018.

During 1952-2018, the crude death rate decreased from 22% in 1952 to 6.0% in 2018 with a percentage of 72%. The infant mortality rate dropped from its high levels during the same time period from about 122 per every 1,000 in 1952 to 17 in 2018.

Total birth rates have also dropped, as a result of social and economic changes.

One of the major social factors that caused this decline is that most females seek education nowadays, which causes a delay in marriage.

The economic factors also played a role in this decline, especially through the increase in the proportion of females in the labor force, where it reached 15.4% in 2018.

On the other hand, the education sector in Jordan has achieved great progress, with illiteracy rates dropping from 16.7% in 1991 to 5.1% in 2018.
school enrollment has also increased to 96.7% for the academic year 2017/2018.