3.2 Population structure and distribution
The most striking feature of the Afghan population is its very young age structure see Figure 3.1 and Table 3.1. Some
48.4 percent 13 million is under 15 years of age, whereas elderly of 65 and over represent only 2.5 percent of the total
population. The proportion under 15 would igure the second highest in the world in the 2010 UN population estimates UN
Population Division 2011.
The young age composition contributes to a very high dependency ratio: for every 100 persons in the working age
15-64, there are 104 persons in the less productive ages of under-ifteen and 65 and over, who are dependent for income
and subsistence. This igure implies a signiicant burden for the prime working-age population and the economy at
large, as large economic and social investments in terms of education and health care are concentrated in the youngest
age categories.
Overall, the share of the 0-14 year old population has decreased very little compared to 2007-08 48.6 percent.
However, if the better coverage of household members in the present survey is taken into account, the decrease might well have been around four percentage points.
Generally, the sex ratio across age groups follows a pattern in which boys outnumber girls at birth with around 105 to 100, by and large maintain this male pre-dominance in early childhood, to gradually converge with the number of
women at later ages. Around age 50 the male surplus usually turns into a shortfall, which increases at older ages, resulting in an overall sex ratio generally close to 100. This pattern results from the usually small excess of boys at
birth and the commonly higher mortality of males over females. Genuine deviations from this pattern can be caused by
variations in the sex ratio at birth and by sex-speciic mortality and migration. However, sex-speciic age-misreporting and under-counting or over-counting can also lead to unexpected sex ratios.
Figure 3.1 Population, by age and sex in percentages
30-34 35-39
40-44 45-49
50-54 55-59
60-64 65-69
70-74 75-79
80-84 85+
10 8
6 4
2 2
4 6
8 10
0-4 5-9
10-14 15-19
20-24 25-29
30-34
Percentage Female
Male POPULATION STRUCTURE AND CHANGE
9
Quality of age reporting
In countries like Afghanistan, many people are unaware about their exact age or date of birth. This leads to high
incidences of age misreporting, for instance by age heaping and age shifting. Conse-quently, reported ages in surveys
and censuses should be treated with caution. Different procedures to assess the quality of the NRVA data indicate
that age reporting is highly inaccurate.
a
Another common characteristic of many developing countries is the omission of very young children from enumeration
activities. The relatively small 0-4 age group in Figure 3.1 points in this direction. A breakdown by single years of age
suggests an even more pronounced undercount of infants and one-year old children. It is not unlikely that around one
million young children are omitted from the present igures. Both age reporting and coverage of young children in the
present NRVA are signiicantly better than in the NRVA rounds of 2005 and 2007-08.
a
The Myers blended index is 20.6 and the Whipple’s index is 223.
POPULATION STRUCTURE AND CHANGE
10
Table 3.1: Population, by residence, sex, and by age a. in thousands
Age Urban
Rural Kuchi
National Male
Female Both
sexes Male
Female Both
sexes Male
Female Both
sexes Male
Female Both
sexes 0-14
1,335 1,238
2,574 5,048
4,652 9,701
416 358
774 6,799
6,249 13,048
15-24 733
711 1,444
1,698 1,745
3,443 109
110 219
2,540 2,566
5,106 25-39
536 533
1,069 1,637
1,683 3,320
126 134
260 2,299
2,350 4,649
40-64 409
433 842
1,281 1,195
2,476 91
81 172
1,781 1,709
3,490 65+
128 74
202 281
145 426
21 13
34 430
231 662
Total 3,141
2,989 6,130
9,945 9,420
19,365 764
696 1,459
13,850 13,105
26,955
b. in thousands
Age Urban
Rural Kuchi
National Male
Female Both
sexes Male
Female Both
sexes Male
Female Both
sexes Male
Female Both
sexes 0-14
42.5 41.4
42.0 50.8
49.4 50.1
54.4 51.4
53.0 49.1
47.7 48.4
15-24 23.3
23.8 23.6
17.1 18.5
17.8 14.3
15.8 15.0
18.3 19.6
18.9 25-39
17.1 17.8
17.4 16.5
17.9 17.1
16.5 19.3
17.8 16.6
17.9 17.2
40-64 13.0
14.5 13.7
12.9 12.7
12.8 11.9
11.7 11.8
12.9 13.0
12.9 65+
4.1 2.5
3.3 2.8
1.5 2.2
2.8 1.8
2.3 3.1
1.8 2.5
Total 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0
The overall sex distribution in the Afghan population is tilted toward males, as indicated by the sex ratio – the number of males per 100 females in the population. The NRVA 2011-12 found a relatively high overall sex ratio of 106 males per
100 females, corresponding to 48.5 percent females and 51.5 percent males. It is likely that a combination of female under-enumeration – related to cultural norms of female seclusion – and excess female mortality – especially related
to maternal mortality – are important factors to the high sex ratio in the Afghan population. The especially large under- representation of teenage and older 55 and over females in the survey results supports this supposition.
As is shown in panel a of Table 3.1, the population of Afghanistan is overwhelmingly rural: the 19.4 million rural residents represent 71.8 percent of the total population. Only 22.7 percent 6.1 million live in urban areas, whereas 5.4 percent
1.5 million of the population is classiied as Kuchi. The CSO population projection rates imply that since the NRVA 2007-08, the total population has increased with 2.0 million people, of which 1.2 million in urban areas and 828 thousand
in rural areas. Due to the assumed counterbalancing effect of natural growth and settlement of the Kuchi, the size of the nomadic population remains stable at 1.5 million people, which implies a steady decrease in terms of its share in the
overall population down from 5.8 in 2007-08.
The breakdown by residence shows considerable differences in the percentage of population below 15 between the urban, rural and Kuchi populations. Whereas this share is over 50 percent in the latter two populations, in urban areas
it is only 42 percent. On the other hand, the age group 15-24 is relatively overrepresented in urban areas 23.6 against 17.8 percent in rural areas. These different age structures are to a considerable extent caused by the combined effects
of lower urban fertility and selective in-migration of students and young adults looking for education opportunities and jobs on the urban labour market.
At provincial level, the differences in the age structure of the population are even more pronounced. Whereas Kabul – as expected, being the most urbanised province – records the lowest share of under-15 population 41.1 percent, nine
provinces have shares of more than 52 percent data not shown.
Kategori