Pre-Trip Information

Population

Of the population numbering 1.3 million (including Rodrigues and other dependencies), population density is high. There is a birth rate of 15.26  per 1,000,  a fertility rate of 1.94 children born per woman, and a population growth rate of 0.798 percent per annum.


Ethnicity

Mauritius' diverse ethnic makeup is the product of its past as a sugar producing colony. Members of Mauritius' Creole population are descendants of African slaves and European plantation owners. The dominant Indo-Mauritian community traces its roots to laborers who replaced the Africans in the cane fields after slavery was abolished. These include people who came from both present-day India as well as present-day Pakistan. There are a small number of people of Chinese descent, referred to as Sino-Mauritians and a small Franco-Mauritian population.

Franco-Mauritians compose the nation's elite and historically held political power. For many years, their power base was supported by the Creoles. The Franco-Mauritian elite controls nearly all of the large sugar estates, and they continue to be active in business and banking. Its hold over state authority has decreased, however. As the Indian population grew and the voting franchise was extended, political power shifted from the Franco-Mauritians and their Creole allies, to the Indian community.

While there have been significant conflicts between the diverse Mauritian ethnicities, in recent years the growing state has successfully incorporated the plurality into the functioning of the state. Civic institutions, the public service and the business sector have all begun reflecting this diversification of the bases of power and opportunity. Nonetheless, this inclusiveness appears to have come at the cost of proportionality. Mauritius appears to be becoming a society built on separate but equal ethnic access to political, social and economic processes.

Language

English is the official language, but French is still widely spoken. In government, the authorized language of address is English, but any member of the National Assembly may address the speaker in French. The most widely spoken language is Mauritian Creole, which is derived primarily from French. In addition, other secondary languages are spoken, such as Hindi, Urdu, Bojoori, Hakka and Tamil. Among the Indian population, Bojoori is reportedly the most commonly spoken language.

Religion

Religious affiliation is similarly varied and includes followers of Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Because the majority of the Mauritian population (68 percent) is of Indian ancestry, Hinduism is practiced by more than half the population (52 percent), while Islam is practiced by 16 percent of the population. Christians make up about 28 percent of the population, with Roman Catholics making up the vast majority of the Christians.

Health and Welfare

Life expectancy is relatively high at 73.75 years (77.4 for women and 70.26 for men). The literacy rate for the population age 15 and over is 85 percent. With less than one percent of the population testing HIV positive, Mauritius has not faced the HIV/AIDS the crisis of many of its regional partners.  The literacy rate is  84.4 percent, with males seeing a higher rate of  88.4 percent, relative to the 80.5 percent for females.

Education expenditures in the country amount to 3.2  percent of GDP. Health expenditures in this country amount to  6.5 percent of GDP.  Availability of drinkable water is very good; access to sanitation facilities is also very good. 


Human Development

One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries and territories, the HDI placed Mauritius in the high human development category, at 72nd place.

Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.