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People
Ethnographic Composition
Today, ethnic Belarusians (Byelarusians) comprise approximately 78 percent of a total population of just under 10 million. About 13 percent of the population is ethnic Russian. Ethnic Poles and Ukrainians account for four percent and three percent of the population, respectively.
Belarusians are a Slavic people; their official language, Belarusian, is a Slavic linguistic derivative, closely related to Ukrainian and Russian. Russianis also widely spoken.
In terms of religious affiliation, as is the case for many Slavic peoples, the Eastern Orthodox Church is predominant. There are also Belarusian Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims.
Human Development
Recent estimates determined that Belarusians have an average life expectancy at birth of 70.9 years (65.3 years for males, 76.9 years for females).The infant mortality rate is 6.34 deaths per 1,000 live births. An estimated 99.6 percent of the total population, age 15 and older, can read and write (99.8 percent of males, 99.4 percent of females). About 4.5 percent of GDP is spent in the country on educational expenditures. About 5.8 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to sanitation, water, and health care is considered to be generally good.
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, the HDI placed Belarus in the high human development category, at 61st place.
Note: 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.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for research sources.
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