Statistics Show Afghanistan Is Poor, Illiterate, Young Nation
During President Obama’s lengthy, wide-ranging news conference Friday, he ticked off several statistics about Afghanistan that you may never have heard. One of them: The war-torn Asian nation has an illiteracy rate of 70 percent.
To be precise, 28.1 percent of Afghanistan residents age 15 and above can read and write, according to the CIA. That puts the illiteracy rate in Afghanistan at 71.9 percent.
Here are some other facts about Afghanistan, courtesy of the CIA, that you may not have known. The data tells the tale of a poor, economically weak country:
• The poverty rate is 36 percent.
• The birth rate is 38.37 per 1,000.
• The death rate is 17.83 per 1,000.
• The population’s life expectancy is 44.4 years.
• The median age is 18.
• The population is nearly 28.4 million, a few million more than the number of people who live in Texas.
• 24 percent of the population lives in urban areas.
• The GDP is $27.01 billion.
• The inflation rate is 30.5 percent.
• The unemployment rate is 35 percent.
• 78.6 percent of the labor force works in agriculture.
• Imports ($5.3 billion) vastly outweigh exports ($547 million).
• Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium.
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