Density

 

Young couple taking a selfie at sunset on Lautoka waterfront.

As we've just seen yesterday, Fiji itself is a young country politically, having got its independence in 1970, just above half a century old. The projected current population is around 914,000. Fiji has a share of 0.01% of the global population and the population density is about 49 people per sq km. It is not a crowded place! Off season you could walk for large stretches of coastline in complete solitude. A different matter in the tourist season, though.

Driftwood on a deserted beach. 

Not just Fiji is young, its population is overwhelmingly so. The median age of the population is about 28 years, and almost 70% of its population is below 40 years of age. Children below 15y make up around 29% of the population, while 65+ age bracket makes up around 5%. Male population share is 51% while female population has a share of 49%. The sex ratio in Fiji is marginally higher than the global average of 50:50. 

Most of the population is settled in the cities. Nearly six out of ten people live in urban areas, mostly concentrated in Suva, Nadi and Lautoka. An important town in the smaller Vanua Levu Island is Labasa. 

Indigenous Fijians are of Melanesian origins with some Polynesian influences. They comprise the majority of the current population roughly about 62% and Indo-Fijians, the descendants of the indentured Indian labourers are about 34-35%. Other ethnicities - Chinese, Europeans, etc make up the balance 4%. 

Total life expectancy at birth is 71.3 years, marginally higher than the global life expectancy. Infant mortality is 18.2 per 1000 live births, lower than the global rate at 26.7/1000.  The fertility rate in Fiji has declined from more than 3 in 2000 to 2.8 in 2020 in a span of 20 years. 

A youthful demography has its own set of unique advantages (future human capital) and challenges (dependency rate, education, accommodation, upskilling, employment generation, prevention of brain drain). 

Fiji's political situation and its unique demographics has led to waves of migration out of the country, especially of Indo Fijians. That diaspora is found in Australia, New Zealand, United States and Canda, to a lesser extent in the UK and European countries. It is estimated that 100,000 Indo Fijians have left Fiji after the upheaval of 1987.  Migration of skilled people out of Fiji does pose a serious setback for some sectors of the Fijian economy. 

All this month I'll be writing about Aspects of Fiji, which is where the derriere is parked at the mo. And where the sum of  the constituent parts is definitely greater than the whole!

Did you know that indigenous Fijians had strong boat building skills? The traditional crafts used by them was a double hulled canoe called drua. The term canoe is a misnomer because druas were not dugouts but regular sailboats made by joining planks of wood together. 

Credit

~ Thank you for reading ~

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2023