Country Information - Society

Better living standards

According to the Tunisian model of development, economic liberalization and openness are designed to achieve a shared growth and development benefiting all social categories and all regions.
The achievements and gains accomplished in this regard bear testimony to the significant strides made in establishing a model of society where the middle class is expanded and well-being is offered to all Tunisians.
The quantum leap achieved in terms of living standards can be illustrated through the following indicators :

Population Policy

The different components of the population policy, including the universal schooling of girls, increasing women’s presence in the job market, and promoting mother and child healthcare programs, have changed the Tunisian family’s reproductive behavior, and brought down the population growth rate to 1.09% in 2007, against 2.34% in 1987.

Health Indicators

Thanks to the implementation of a series of human and social development programs, Tunisia has managed to continuously improve its health indicators :

• Life expectancy at birth increased from 51 years in 1966 to 74.2 years in 2007.
• The mortality rate decreased from 15‰ in 1967 to 5.7‰ in 2007.
• The infant mortality rate decreased from 138.6‰ in 1966 to 18.4‰ in 2007.
• The rate of vaccination among children increased from 70% in 1984 to over 95% in 2007.

Social security benefits

State spendings constitute one of the most important tools materializing the social dimension of the development strategy, given their crucial role in :

• enhancing the sense of solidarity and anchoring the values of mutual support among social categories;
• promoting human resources, and striking a balance between economic efficiency and social well-being.

Education

The main results achieved in the field of education include the following:

• An increase in the schooling rate of six-year-olds from 94.9% in 1988-1989 to more than 99.1% in 2007-2008.
• A considerable increase in the number of higher education students, which reached 350,800 in 2007-2008, against 43,700 in 1987, and a significant increase in the percentage of young people in full-time university education, which stood at 35.2% in 2007, against 6% in 1987.
• An increase in the percentage of female students in secondary and higher education, which rose respectively from 42.4% and 36.7% in 1986-1987 to 53.2% and 59.1% in 2006-2007.