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People
Social Demography
Today, ethnic Armenians comprise approximately 93 percent of a total population of approximately three million. Yezidi Kurds, Russians, Azeris and a small number of Greeks make up the remaining portions of the population.
A vast majority of the population -- over 95 percent -- speaks Armenian. The Armenian language is also the official language of the country. Russian is the largest minority language spoken in Armenia. Other spoken languages include Azerbaijani, Ukrainian, Greek, Karachay-Balkar and Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish). Linguistic records also indicate evidences of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic language typologies.
The predominant religion is Armenian Orthodox -- a denomination of the Eastern Orthodox church. It is practiced by approximately 94 percent of the population. Other Christians make up about 4 percent of the population. Yezidi -- a blend of Zoroastrian and animist influences -- is practiced by the remaining 2 percent of the people in Armenia.
Human Development
The CIA World Factbook recently determined that Armenians have an average life expectancy at birth of 72.96 years (69.3 years for males, 77 years for females). The infant mortality rate is estimated to be 19.5 deaths per 1,000 live births. An estimated 99.4 percent of the total population, age 15 and older, can read and write (99.7 percent of males, 99.2 percent of females).
About four percent of GDP is spent in the country on educational expenditures. About 3.7 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to sanitation, water, and health care is considered to be generally good.
Currently, Armenia is suffering one of the most rapid population losses in the world due to migration to other countries in the world. Some 800,000 Armenians left the country in the 1990s, almost a quarter of the population, estimated Gagik Yeganyan, head of a new department of migration that was established in 2000. Census estimates for 2001 noted that 1.5 million Armenians emigrated. The number of babies born in Armenia fell from 90,000 in 1990 to 36,000 a decade later.
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 Armenia in the high human development category, at 76th place.
Editor's 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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