2022 Sees Steep Rise In Foreign Children And Steady Decline In Maltese
Malta housed nearly 82,000 children in 2022, amping the figures by 5,000 in the last 11 years, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported.
These numbers can be attributed to a notable rise in the number of foreign children, which has increased seven-fold since 2011. However, this figure offsets the decrease in Maltese children over the course of a decade, bringing the figures down from 74, 614 to a whopping 67,272.
This is a stark contrast to the statistics pertaining to foreign children, which increased from 2113 in 2011 to 14,691 in 2022.
These figures, which were released by the NSO to coincide with World Children’s Day, focus on children aged between 0 and 17.
In 2011, Malta’s total population stood at 417,546, with 18.4% of this figure being children. This figure saw an increase of 100,000 in the span of 11 years, bringing the total population of Malta to 542,051, with 15.1% being children.
A breakdown by region reveals that the Southeastern area had the highest proportion of children, accounting for 17% of the region’s total population. Following closely were the Western Region at 16.2% and the Northern region at 16%.
Gozo and the Southern Harbour regions followed suit, with their percentage of children amounting to 15.1% and 15% respectively.
Meanwhile, the Northern Harbour Region exhibited the lowest ratio at 13.4%.
NSO data also portrayed that a number of 33,120 boys and 30,968 girls between the ages of 3-17 were enrolled in formal education during the scholastic year 2021-2022.
What do you make of these numbers?