Census Takers Research Articles

Population growth and differential fertility in Zanzibar protectorate

The demographic evolution of the Protectorate of Zanzibar which consists of 2 principal islands--Zanzibar Island and Pemba Island--has been much influenced by migration. Unfortunately both the migration statistics and vital registration are inadequate to provide a sound basis for demographic analysis which consequently must be confined to census data. 5 complete censuses have been conducted since the beginning of the 20th century: 1910; 1921-24; 1931; 1948; and 1958. The total populations of the islands increased by 13.2% between 1948-58 and average annual rate of growth of 1.25% per annum. A comparison of the 1948 and 1958 census totals for the 2 islands shows that the increase in Pemba was greater both relatively and absolutely than the increase in Zanzibar. In the 1958 census an effort was made to analyze the complex ethnic composition of the population. 2 questions were included on the schedule to this end: the 1st question asked persons to state their race; and the second asked for tribe or country of ancestry. The reactions which these questions provoked is perhaps illustrative of the problems which beset census takers in present day Africa. Despite possible underrepresentation in 1958 due to misclassification the percentage increases in the Asian population in both islands were appreciably greater than those in the Afro Arab population. More important the increase in Afro Arab population in Pemba was substantially greater than in Zanzibar. These differing rates of growth of the Afro Arab populations of the 2 islands cannot be attributed to greater immigration into Pemba. It is necessary to examine the relative rates of natural increase for the principal causes of the different rates of population growth. The fertility data collected in the 1958 census indicate that the principal cause lay not in differential mortality but in the different levels of fertility recorded for the Afro Arab women in the 2 islands. The level of fertility in Zanzibar Island outside the town was only slightly lower than that in Pemba. The application of Myburghs technique of fertility analysis gave a total fertility rate of 2.65 and a crude birthrate of 21/1000 in Zanzibar Town and a total fertility rate of 4.26 and a crude birthrate of 36/1000 in the remainder of Zanzibar Island. The estimated total fertility rate of the Asian population in Zanzibar Town was 5.4 and the crude birthrate 40/1000. These rates were almost twice as high as those estimated for the Afro Arab population in the town. The exceptionally low fertility of the Afro Arab women in Zanzibar Town is a unique feature in East African demography. Certain features of the statistical evidence indicate that the low level of fertility can more readily be ascribed to physical sterility than to either lower nuptiality or family limitation.

Women in the Clerical Occupations

clerical occupations within the last few decades has become one of the most phenomenal, if also one of the least conspicuous of the economic changes which have been transforming the lives of women during that period.' The seven women stenographers and typists recorded by the census takers of 1870 would hardly have conceived it possible that they were precursors of a host which had become half a million by the census of 1990. But this is only typical of all the clerical occupations which have increased decade by decade with unbroken regularity. Where there were half a million clerical work-