The first population census was conducted in the history of Kuwait 65 years ago, and I remember the delegates’ visits to our house and the homes of neighbors, and their sitting on the ground to write down the data, and some people doubted because they asked suspicious questions, especially with the police accompanying them.
All census data was published at the time in the Official Gazette “Kuwait Al-Youm”, No. 211, and it included many details that were the subject of guidance from several demographic and security authorities, and in the areas of economic, educational, social and health planning for the population, especially with the increasing flow of oil revenues, and the need to build new cities and facilities.
The statistics included sad information, and others very funny, and showed things that could have been avoided, but the “people of that time” tried as much as they could, and this did not prevent the occurrence of huge and terrible violations, which were if not for the wisdom that characterized the founding Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem, and the policy of firmness that he followed, with adults, the situation would have been much worse.
The total population of Kuwait reached 206 thousand in 1957, compared to today’s number (4.450 million people). The proportion of Kuwaitis among them is slightly more than half, but it has declined to almost 30% today, and this is normal, with the increase in the need for skilled hands and foreign expertise. The percentage of Kuwaitis would be much lower than that, had it not been for the random naturalization policy, from which many benefited, and often without a legitimate reason, and some of these became among the extremists of religious parties, because they knew that it was the party that provided them with protection and cover, even if their matter was exposed, as the owner of the hoopoes benefited!
The population of the capital in the 1957 census was 104 thousand citizens, while today it is devoid of citizens, and this is a phenomenon that is unique to Kuwait. The population of Failaka Island was 2,442, and today there are almost none.
The number of Egyptians at that time was 1,734, and today it exceeds 670,000. And the Indians were 4100 and today they are a little more than a million.
It is interesting to note that there are 7 Canadians, 164 Americans, 177 South Americans, 23 Australians, 2371 Britons, and 612 Europeans, and perhaps the majority of them work in the oil extraction and export industry, or consultants to the government.
The number of East Asian citizens did not exceed 345, and today their number is close to one million. As for the Palestinians and Jordanians, their number was 15,000, and at its peak it reached nearly half a million, before it declined to 7% of that number. As for the Syrians, their number did not exceed two thousand at the time, and today they are more than 160 thousand, due to the conditions of the civil war in their homeland.
In the same context, PACI showed a few days ago that the size of the population increased during the past 32 years to 939 thousand people (1,500,000 - 578,000) distributed among 313,000 families. The annual increase amounted to 28.7 thousand Kuwaitis, while the annual increase rate ranged between 25 and 32 thousand people, with the exception of 1993, which witnessed an annual increase estimated at 78.9 thousand people, and the reason is known?
The replacement-level fertility rate, the rate at which a population replaces itself from generation to generation without emigration, is often seen as an acceptable birth rate. The replacement-level fertility rate is usually estimated at about 2.1 births per woman. However, this rate may vary from country to country. Therefore, many question the rate of increase in Kuwait, and the figures of the Public Authority for Civil Information.
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Ahmad alsarraf
