YEMEN: Only Two Percent Population is Over 60 Years of Age

SANA'A (Yemen Times), October 9, 2005: What defines the power of a country is resources in the hands of the people. This is related to the people’s ability to purchase. The more one is able to purchase, or rather to spend money on other than basic needs, the further one is from the economic poverty line. There are many factors that play a role in people’s ability to work, also termed as “productivity”. There are factors of age, education and skills, opportunity and some times gender. Let us take Yemen for example. Yemen’s vast population is very young: 50% of the population is in the age group between 0-15 years old. Adding two percent for people above 60 years of age, the supposedly productive percentage is only 48% of the population. Considering that 50% of the productive group is females, the productivity of females in Yemen range between 3-15% of the women able to work, according to gender statistics. There are many reasons influencing on this aspect, such as education and the fact that one of two women in Yemen is illiterate, and in the rural areas as much as 70%. Besides the problem of illiteracy, cultural barriers stand against women’s participation in the public sphere. This means that in spite of the fact that 50% of the productive group is female, only 15% (at best) of the women are able to work. In the end only 27.6% of the population is productive. Taking unemployment into account, which according to government statistics is 30% (while other non-government statistics give higher percentages), this leaves us with only 19.32% of the population actually productive. Around 23 percent of the population is shouldering the responsibility of feeding the 21 million inhabitants of Yemen. Even though there is a theoretical 19% of the population earning, only 30% of that group are able to spend money on other things than food. Coming back to our calculation: Of the 19.32% able to earn, only 30% (5.79% of the total population) is able to spend on non-basic issues. This 5.8% defines the target market for technology, tourism, brands, style, etc. Just below 6% of the Yemeni population are able to purchase a digital camera or branded shoes. 6% of the population are supposedly able to go to a different city on holidays or if lucky enough to a neighboring country. This means that in spite of the large population in Yemen, the percentage that the business sector is competing for constitutes only 6% of the total population (1.3 million people). The point here is Yemen's per capita income is very low, hardly exceeding 400$ per year, while countries such as Lebanon, which is a war battered country with no oil resources, have a per capita income that reaches 7000$ per year. There are many reasons why the Yemeni economy is so low. Among others is the high growth of population, weak infrastructure, feeble economic system and strategies. Yet, what is most important is the spread of corruption and lack of good governance. This creates an environment not suitable for investment, economic growth, development or progress. The bottomline is that good governance is the only way forward if we want to utilize our resources right. Extracts from Editorial Comment