General

As of the end of 2005, Kuwait had a total population of 2.992 million people which included 1.999 million non-nationals. Kuwaiti citizens are a minority of those who reside in Kuwait. The government only rarely grants citizenship to non-citizens (who are generally referred to as expatriates). About 57% of the Kuwaiti population is Arab; Arab expatriates include a large group of stateless Arabs, locally known as Bidoon (an Arabic word meaning "without" and different from Bedouin), along with Egyptians, Lebanese and other Arabs. Other large groups of expatriates include Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis and Filipinos. In 2003, more than 400,000 Indian nationals lived in Kuwait, making them the largest expatriate community in the oil-rich state. Kuwait formerly had a large Palestinian population, though most of them were forced out of the country after PLO leader Yassir Arafat's support of Iraq during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

Overview

Population:
2,335,648
note: includes 1,291,354 non-nationals (July 2005 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 27.2% (male 323,382/female 311,700)
15-64 years: 70.1% (male 1,045,589/female 591,243)
65 years and over: 2.7% (male 40,439/female 23,295) (2005 est.)

Median age:
total: 25.86 years
male: 28.05 years
female: 22.12 years (2005 est.)

Population growth rate:
3.44%
note: this rate reflects a return to pre-Gulf crisis immigration of expatriates (2005 est.)

Birth rate:
21.88 births/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Death rate:
2.42 deaths/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Net migration rate:
14.96 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2005 est.)