Demographics of East Timor


This article is about the demographic features of the population of East Timor, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

Vital statistics

UN estimates http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/index.htm World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision

Fertility and Births

Total Fertility Rate and Crude Birth Rate :
YearCBR TFR CBR TFR CBR TFR
200352.17.850.57.4
2009–201033.25.7 33.14.9 33.26.0
201626.84.2 28.43.5 26.24.6

Fertility rate by municipality

and Ainaro Municipality have the highest fertility rate with 5.5 children per woman, followed by Ermera Municipality with 5.4 children per woman.
MunicipalityFertility rate in 2004Fertility rate in 2010Fertility rate in 2015Decline between 2004-2015
Dili6.75.33.9 2.8
Liquiçá7.16.25.1 2.0
Covalima7.05.64.7 2.3
Manufahi7.35.64.9 2.4
Manatuto6.75.64.6 2.1
Aileu8.47.05.5 3.0
Lautém7.76.45.2 2.5
Bobonaro6.95.94.7 2.2
Baucau6.95.84.7 2.2
Viqueque6.35.34.6 1.7
Ermera8.26.95.4 2.8
Ainaro8.36.45.5 2.8
Oecusse 6.95.24.2 2.7
Timor-Leste7.25.94.7 2.5

Between 2014/15, around 43.5% of the births occurred in a health facility, up from 36.3% in 2010/11. This percentage varies widely from 77.5% in Dili Municipality to only 15.1% of all births in Ermera Municipality.

Life expectancy at birth

Average life expectancy at age 0 of the total population.
PeriodLife expectancy
in Years		PeriodLife expectancy in
Years
1950–195530.01985–199046.5
1955–196032.51990–199550.5
1960–196535.01995–200057.0
1965–197037.52000–200561.5
1970–197540.02005–201066.4
1975–198031.22010–201567.7
1980–198539.9

Population pyramids

Census :
Age groupMaleFemaleTotal%
Total601 112582 5311 183 643100
0-477 89672 410150 30612.70
5-980 37775 705156 08213.19
10-1480 72175 548156 26913.20
15-1969 83967 033136 87211.56
20-2452 75954 244107 0039.04
25-2945 48647 46492 9507.85
30-3435 93436 46172 3956.12
35-3924 24524 64548 8904.13
40-4429 09726 77955 8764.72
45-4925 04422 27447 3184.00
50-5418 66116 77635 4372.99
55-5914 43612 86727 3032.31
60-6413 86414 51628 3802.40
65-6914 61116 42731 0382.62
70-748 9499 20418 1531.53
75-794 8625 0099 9610.84
80-842 3992 7985 1970.44
85+1 9322 2814 2130.36

Median age

In 2015 the median age of the population was 19.6 years old. The population living in rural areas is slighly younger compared to the population living in urban areas.
Ainaro Municipality has the lowest median age with 17.3 years, while Dili Municipality has the highest median age with 21.2 years.

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook

[Population]

Birth rate

Death rate

Population growth rate

Net migration rate

Infant mortality rate

[Life expectancy] at birth

Total fertility rate

Nationality

[Ethnic group]s

[Religion]s

[Language]s

[Literacy]

After achieving independence, East Timor had a high illiteracy rate, with 55% of women and 46% of men illiterate. Approximately 18% of the adult population had achieved secondary education and approximately 1.4% of them had an academic degree or achieved other higher education, nearly all of whom resided in urban areas, primarily the capital Dili. Attempts to improve education services face challenges in the form of a lack of educated and experienced teachers. Continuing high fertility rates also translates to greater strains on the government to increase education budgets. The United Nations has assisted in rebuilding the education system increasing the number of teachers and rehabilitating many schools, leading to a rapid increase in school enrollment. However, problems remain as the quality of education was deemed secondary to the need to increase enrollment in East Timor.
Another problem faced in increasing the education levels includes the economic conditions of the population. With high proportions of the population living below the poverty line and large households with many children, the direct costs of schooling is significant for families. Lack of monetary resources to send children to school imposes greater difficulty in increasing enrollment rates in schools. In addition, parents may be disillusioned with the poor quality of education and thus may not even be interested to send their children to schools. Much remains to be done to establish a new curriculum and support it with texts and learning materials to improve the quality of education. The variety of language spoken also means a large number of children do not speak the language of instruction – Portuguese – and this causes them to be marginalised. Many teachers do not speak Portuguese.
The inaccessibility of schools with proper facilities adds to the problem of providing adequate education to the population. Schools are located far away from homes and, coupled with the poor conditions of schools, may inhibit the early enrollment of children or lead to early drop-outs. Schools in rural areas face substantial lack of facilities to render them safe. As for the schools in urban areas, significant urban migration has meant that the supply of schools in urban areas have not managed to keep up with the increasing demand; leading to overcrowding in urban schools.
Besides the problems faced at the level of the individual households and the schools, problems in the governance and management of education are also significant impediments to raising education levels in East Timor. The lack of qualified personnel in critical positions within the education ministry has meant that overall policy making, planning and management functions are restricted. Management of schools at the district level is often under-qualified due to the lack of formal training. Today therefore, East Timor faces many challenges in increasing the literacy rates of their people.