29 per cent drop in crude births

On the back of enhanced and intensive health check facilities, crude births in the Sultanate of Oman witnessed a substantial fall in recent years.

According to the annual bulletin issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the crude birth rate is estimated to be 18.2 per thousand Omani population in 2021, with a total of 82,224 live births.

However, the death rate rose to 3.6 per thousand in the same year to reach 12,649 fatalities.

In 2020, the crude birth rate stood at 28.6 per 1,000 Omani population, which according to the Ministry of Health, “is a drop of 29.0 per cent over the past twenty-six years”.

The data from the ministry showed that the crude death rate declined to 3.2 per 1,000 Omani population in 2020 from 7.3 in 1993, representing a 56.2 per cent decline in the past 27 years.

The total population in the Sultanate of Oman climbed to 4,527,446 by the end of December 2021 compared to 4,481,042 during the same period in 2020 showing an increase of 1.04 per cent.

According to the annual NCSI bulletin, the number of births decreased during the past two years by 2.58 per cent, as the number of births among Omanis reached 76,457, forming a rate of 92.6 per cent, while the births among expatriates reached 5,767 live births or 7.4 per cent.

The overall birth in 2021 stood at 82,224 live births registering ten births per hour, 228 live births a day and 6,852 per month.

The statistics showed that the crude birth rate for Omanis amounted to 27.3 live births for each thousand of the population. The births for Omanis during August are the highest during the year at 7,194 live births.

The death rate for mothers for every thousand births amounted to 58 per cent of the total births for mothers aged 25-34 years. The number of births for mothers aged 15-19 amounted to 894 live births, including 827 Omanis and 67 expatriates.

Births for mothers aged 50 and above amounted to 22 live births for Omanis and two for expatriates.

Nearly 70 per cent of births for Omanis were in urban areas and 30 per cent in rural areas. The births for expatriates in urban areas amounted to 96 per cent and 4 per cent in rural areas.

The highest live births rate of 19.3 per cent registered in North Al Batinah Governorate, where 24.7 per cent of them were from the Wilayat of Al Rustaq.