Qatari employment

[qatarperegrine]

The Gulf Times published a rather confusing article today called Over 50,000 Qataris economically active, which reports on a census of "economically active" Qataris conducted by the Planning Council in March 2004.

Collating their (somewhat conflicting) data with the CIA World Factbook (always a dodgy undertaking) and adding a dollop of specious statistical handwaving, here's what I found:

		Total population1	Aged 15-642	Economically active	Employment3
TOTAL	Qatari citizens	168,219	122,617	50,282	41%
	Non-citizens	672,879	490,529	387,279	79%
WOMEN	Qatari citizens	84,110	61,316	15,163	25%
	non-citizens	210,2744	125,6985	64,458	51%
MEN	Qatari citizens	84,109	61,316	35,119	57%
	non-citizens	462,604	364,830	322,821	88%

¹ The population in 2004 was around 841,098 (the World Factbook's reported 2005 population minus last year's growth withan annual growth rate of 1.0261). Approximately 20% of these are citizens, 80% non-citizens.

² These are very approximate. The World Factbook says 72.9% of the population is 15-64, but it seems exceedingly unlikely that the Qatari and non-Qatari groups have equivalent age structures.

³ I'm defining employment as the percentage of people age 15-64 who are "economically active." Obviously this is not equivalent to Western measures of employment, which measure only the participation of people who want to work.

⁴ Bear with me here. The World Factbook says that there are 1.88 men per women in Qatar, but that's mainly because non-Qatari immigrants are primarily men. I'm going to assume that the sex ratio is actually close to 1:1 for the 20% of the population that are native Qataris, and that therefore about 31% of non-Qataris are women. Can you tell how approximate we're getting here?

⁵ Same logic as above. The World Factbook says there are 2.28 men per women in the 15-64 age range, which (making the same assumption about a 1:1 sex ratio for Qataris) would mean just under 26% of non-Qataris are women.

Comments

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

³ I'm defining employment as the percentage of people age 15-64 who are "economically active." Obviously this is not equivalent to Western measures of employment, which measure only the participation of people who want to work.

I don't think that's even a valid measure in the West. I mean I don't want to work, as I explain to Abbey every morning, and I just talked to Charles about the fact that he REALLY doesn't want to work, particularly where he is working. I guess it's like the question you're supposed to ask yourself when shopping - "Is this a want or a need?"

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

I think qatar is using "want to work" as a kind of shorthand. In the US I'm used to hearing about the unemployment rate. I don't know exactly how it's defined, but it only includes people who are sort-of looking for work: not full-time students or parents, retired people, independently wealthy loafers, or people with no-show sinecures.

Nice work extrapolating the various categories. I had to think a while to start seeing how one data point came from another. If you made a nice powerpoint showing how you reasoned this out, I bet you could get hired as a marketer, demographer, CIA analyst, etc.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what I meant by wanting to work. :-) Even if you don't have a job, you're not considered unemployed unless you're seeking employment.

And, thank you! I figured you'd catch me out on some bad math, so I'm pleased you didn't (or are too polite to say so). Can you imagine me as a CIA analyst, though? :-D And a history of residency in the Middle East is >highly desired, too!

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

Well I didn't check everything (partly because I wasn't sure, in most cases, which figures were reported and which figures were derived).
But you got 50% of Qataris (= Qatari women) correct, so why not believe the rest?
But knowing Arabic is even more highly desired in CIA analysts...which reminds me...hm...