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People
Population
Today, the population of the Cape Verde archipelago is estimated to be over 500,000. The capital city of Praia is the most popuated urban area across the country.
Ethnicity
The Cape Verde archipelago was uninhabited until the Portuguese discovered it in 1456. African slaves were brought to the islands to work on Portuguese plantations. As a result, Cape Verdeans have a combination of ethnic origins. Seventy-one percent of Cape Verdeans are considered Crioulo or Creole (mixed Portuguese and African descent), 28 percent are African, and one percent is of European, Middle Eastern and other non-African descent.
Language
Although Cape Verde's official language is Portuguese, most people on the islands speak a Creole dialect, Crioulo, consisting of archaic Portuguese modified through contact with African and other European languages. There are 60 local dialects, of which Dioula is the most widely spoken.
Religion
Roman Catholics and Protestants are the major religious groups, however, Islam and indigenous beliefs are also represented.
Culture and Arts
Cape Verde a rich tradition of Crioulo literature and music. Vestiges of African cultures are most pronounced on the island of Santiago, where 50 percent of the people live.
The Cape Verdean Diaspora
The difficulties of survival in a country with few natural resources have historically induced many Cape Verdeans to emigrate. In fact, there are more than one million people of Cape Verdean ancestry in the world; only a little more than one-third of them live on the islands. Some 500,000 people of Cape Verdean ancestry live in the United States, mainly in New England. Portugal, Netherlands, Italy, France and Senegal also have large communities.
This large diaspora significantly influences the culture and economy of Cape Verde. However, people of the diaspora have met with resistance in many places. Most notably, in Brockton, Massachusetts (near Boston), people of Cape Verdean heritage make up an estimated 20 percent of the local population. Many in this group -- the largest concentration of Cape Verdeans in the United States -- face what they consider marginalization by the rest of the populace, and episodes of sometimes violent ethnic tension have occurred.
Education, Health, and Welfare
An estimated 76.6 percent of the population, age 15 and over, can read and write. In terms of gender breakdown, 85.8 percent of males are literate and 69.2 percent of women are literate. Note that 5.9 percent of GDP is spent on educational expenditures in this country.
In terms of health and welfare, recent estimates suggest that the estimated infant mortality rate is 47.77 deaths per 1,000 live births. The life expectancy at birth was 70.7 years years for the total population ( 68.51 years for males and 72.96 for women), according to recent estimates. Note that 3.9 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures in this country.
Social Conditions
In recent years, Cape Verde has confronted a growing crisis of adolescent pregnancy. A 1992 study indicates that 80 percent of children were born out of wedlock. Part of this figure can be attributed to the high number of de facto unions common in Cape Verde society. However, according to Cape Verdean sociologist Victor Borges, AIDS campaigns have contributed significantly to the problem. While there have only been 269 recognized cases of HIV/AIDS in Cape Verde since 1979, the government has taken strong steps to limit the threat before it reaches the epidemic proportions of other countries. Borges argues that such campaigns have two messages. The first is that it is acceptable to have a sex life and the second is that they should use condoms. They hear the first message but not the second. Causes notwithstanding, fathers do not commonly accept economic responsibility for children, creating a significant hardship on women in society. The crisis is especially prevalent in lower income portions of the population.
These social challenges aside, economic and living conditions in Cape Verde are significantly higher than in most of sub-Saharan Africa. The infrastructure is generally good despite the archipelago's geographic isolation. Cape Verde's comparatively favorable economic position is generally attributed to a comparatively small population, relative political stability and the maintenance of sound state-level economic practices.
Human Development
One notable indicator used to measure a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is 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 ranking of 169 countries and territories, the HDI places Cape Verde in the medium human development category, at 118th 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 list of research sources.
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