Macao Population Development
Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), being part of China Territory, is located at the Pearl River Delta of the southeastern of Mainland China. The territory, 25.8Km2 in area, consists of the Macao Peninsula, Taipa Island and Coloane Island. The total population in 2001 is 436,686. The population density is 16,870 per Km2. The ratio of male and female population is 48% and 52% respectively. The population distribution falls 71.3% on 15-64 age group, 21.3% on 0-14 age group and 7.4% on 65 and above age group.
Majority (95.7%) of the population are of Chinese race, about 1.8% are of Portuguese race. Macao is a society basically formed by immigrants, mainly from China mainland. According to the Census 2001, among residents 47.4% are born in China and 43.9% are born in Macao. 3.3% and 0.4% in Hong Kong and in Portugal respectively. In 2001, number of legal immigrants from China is 4,621. The number increased by 1,702 in comparison to the number of migrants from China in 2000. Among these, majority are children and women who are migrated for family re-union.( 63.6% are women). As to age group, 35.7% falls on 0-9 and 26% falls on 30-39. According to the current migration policy, (as from May 2000) a quota of 420 family re-union members is approved to enter Macao each month. This policy will carry on for 4 years. Macao will increase, through this channel, over 10.000 residents in 2-3 years.
These new immigrants who are not of highly educated group affect the quality of the population. A research report on poverty in Macao mentioned that about 66,000 among population are living below poverty index, and the number of poor family is around 19,000. Among the poor population, 46.5% are persons age 19 and under. 23.7% of this population group are either un-educated or preschool educated; 45% are primary school educated , 22% are primary high school educated, 8.6% are secondary high school educated and only 0.5% are post secondary school educated. In order to improve the most deprived group, SAR government is trying hard to provide the low skilled un-employed with different kinds of training, so that they will equip and upgrade themselves during the unemployment period and can be more competent in the job hunting market.
In 2000, the number of birth is 3,241, and the number of death is 1,327. the number of natural growth is 1,914. The natural growth rate is 0.44%. The continuous decline in the birth rate and the increase in life expectancy of the resident during the past 10 years has indicated that the population continued to grow old.. The median age of the population rose from 28.8 years in Census 91 to 33.3 years in Census 2001.The SAR government will continue to improve the elderly services in order to up-grade the life quality of the elderly.
The current services for the elderly in Macao are as follows:
Social Security : A contributory type of social security fund for pensioners. Social welfare Institute is responsible for supplementary financial need for elderly. .
Social welfare: casework, elderly social center, elderly day center, elderly nursing day center, canteen, home help service, services
For living alone elderly, nursing home, care and attention home, special care beds for elderly with terminal disease.
Medical service: preventive health care, free consultation, hospitalization and residential hospice care.
Housing: Low cost and low rental public housing for elderly living alone or old couples living together.
Others: Discount card for the elderly and college for the elderly.
Population dependency index is affected by birth rate, death rate and longevity. Up to 2001, young dependency index has been declining from 35.% to 30.5% since 1991 while elderly dependency index has gone up from 9.6% to 10.2% during the same period. However, these indexes have no impact on the socio- economic situation of the society so far.
It is recorded that the cases of death due to sicknesses is 1338. in 2000 and is 1327 in 2001. Died of circulation system problems decreased by 99 cases but died of tumor and respiratory system problems has increased by 31 cases and 17 cases respectively. Also died of digestive system problems increased by 9 cases and 31 cases were found to have died of pestilence and poisoned. As the number of death due to respiratory system and pestilence problem has increased, we should be aware of environment protection.
From 1986 to 2001, 240 (HIV) cases have been recorded, of which 166 cases were non- residents who work in the entertainment sector. Among the other 74 cases, 68.9% are males and 21 cases have developed to be Aids cases.
According to the analysis through 240 HIV cases accumulated in the above- mentioned period, there are 3 transmission ways of HIV : hetero-sexual contacts (33.8%), sharing drug needles (16.2%), and homo-sexual contacts (12.2%). As to the age distribution of such cases, 39.2% are of 30-39 age group and 28.4% are of 20-29 age group. In 2001, 12 HIV cases were found in Macao.
In Macao, the main transmission ways of HIV is hetero-sexual contacts, and it seems that the number of needle sharing users has been spreading out. Thus, effort to find out effective ways of preventive measures should be promoted.
As mentioned above, the male and female population ratio is 48% and 52 %.In Macao ,men and women have equal opportunity for education., and thus the ratio of male and female in the labor force is 46.5% and 53.5%. Women have more roles to play that family structure changed. Traditional family has gradually been replaced by nuclear family. In 2001, the average number in a family is 3.14 persons as in 1991 it was 3.49 persons. Average number of 1.66 children for a couple is recorded 2001. Late marriage, bearing less children and to receive more education has become the pattern for modern women.
In order to meet the need of the community, the SAR government has invited Well- known scholars from oversea, Hong Kong and Macao to conduct research in the area of medical, elderly, poverty, family, youth and drug prevention etc. SAR government, in response to the recommendations given regarding poverty research, has made a special grant to supplement the single parent family and other individual or family with special need. Medical service also has been reviewed and restructured to aim at providing the residents with a better quality and rapid service. All the reports of the research will be published when completed.
As regard to mother and child care, mother are provided with free pre-natal care, hospitalization during labor period and post-natal care. Children are provided with free immunity vaccination. Therefore, in 2001 all the babies are recorded born in hospital and thus more live babies can be guaranteed. The death rate in 2001 was 4.3%.
Open society with advanced information technology and active and prosperous economic facilitate young generation to be exposed easily to sex activities. To prevent STD among this group due to insufficient knowledge of sex education, the medical center has issued a certain numbers of pamphlets in this respect for the easy reach of the residents.
During the past 10 years, birth rate has been reduced and the life expectancy at birth has been extended but the population growth has been slow down. With the pouring in of young legal immigrants, especially young people and women, the ageing of population will not turn so rapid. On the other hand, the fact that these new immigrants are not well educated affect the quality of our population.. To upgrade the population quality, either physically or literately, should be the main target of our future policy. Our good medical net work can now guarantee the health of our population and the equal opportunity for education between men and women leads to a rate of literary of 91.3% among residents aged 15 and above. Compared to 10 years ago, although it is registered an increase rate of 7.1% and 3.0% respectively on secondary school and higher education, SAR government also has to invest in the human resources by providing professional training for those population with low technical skill and by attracting high quality immigrants for a better socio-economic development.