Population
p. 26 · Read in the full issue
Figures
THE TOTAL population of the 13 Forum Island Countries is about 5.3 million people. Seventy per cent live in Papua New Guinea. Fiji has the second biggest popu lation accounting for 13 per cent of the region’s total. In sharp contrast is Niue with less than 2500 people 0.04 per cent of the region’s population.
The 13 FICs are the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiri bati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Pa pua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa.
Their size, climate and make up vary widely. But there is one thing they do have in common a relatively high rate of population growth, averaging 2.2 per cent across the region.
The particularly high growth rates in Melanesian countries reflect declining mor tality and very high fertility rates. Accord ing to World Bank figures, between 1980 and 1988, the net population growth rate was 3.5 per cent in the Solomon Islands and 2.9 per cent in Vanuatu. In other countries fertility rates were lower.
Kiribati, Western Samoa and Tonga have relatively high natural growth rates of 2.3, 2.2 and 2.9 per cent respectively. Only high rates of emigration from the three countries mean the net population growth is low there. However, migration also results in the loss of skilled workers. The situation is the same in Niue, the Cook Islands and Fiji where migration reduces potential growth rates but results in skilled human resource depletion.
Because of the high population growth rates, children comprise a high proportion of the total population, producing rela tively high dependency ratios.