Jordan - People
Jordan’s population was 5.1 million according to the 2004 census, up substantially from the 4.1 million recorded in the 1994 census. The population was estimated to have increased to 5.9 million by mid-2006 with an annual growth rate of approximately 2.5 percent. The country has a relatively low population density in comparison to the rest of the region—around 62 people per square kilometer. However, approximately 78 percent of inhabitants live in urban settings, and a large portion of the population (approximately 38 percent) resides in the capital, Amman.
Much of the population consists of refugees of Palestinian descent stemming from either the 1948 Arab-Israeli War or the loss of the West Bank in 1967. Official United Nations figures put the number of registered Palestinian refugees living in Jordan in 2004 at 1.7 million, although independent and unofficial surveys estimated that residents of Palestinian descent exceeded 3.2 million, or approximately 60 percent of the total population. Foreigners, mostly from Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, reportedly constitute about 7 percent of the population. In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, anecdotal evidence has suggested a significant influx of Iraqis into Jordan, although concrete numbers were difficult to obtain.
According to 2006 estimates by the U.S. government, around 33.8 percent of the country is less than 15 years of age, 62.4 percent is 15–64 years of age, and 3.9 percent is 65 and older. The median age of the population is estimated to be 23, and the sex ratio for the total population is 1.1 males per female. The birthrate is estimated at 21.25 births per 1,000. The fertility rate of women 15 to 49 years of age is approximately 2.63 children born per woman. The infant mortality rate is estimated at 16.76 deaths per 1,000 live births. The overall death rate is estimated to be 2.65 deaths per 1,000. The average life expectancy of Jordanians is around 78.4 years (75.9 years for males and 81.05 years for females).
In the pre-1948 East Bank, the dominant sociopolitical order was tribalism. Tribalism was characteristic not only of the beduin nomads and seminomads upon whom the Hashimite (also seen as Hashemite) rulers relied for support, but also of many of the village people and even those who were technically urban. After 1948 this sociocultural system was inundated by masses of Palestinians, largely sedentary village and town dwellers, many of them literate and well educated. The sheer numbers of Palestinians who came to the East Bank after 1948 and the comparatively simple economy and society of the indigenous Transjordanians made the assimilation of the Palestinians to the local patterns improbable. Indeed, some analysts have argued that by the early 1970s Palestinians had established a cultural dominance in the East Bank. In any case, by the late 1980s, Palestinians had considerable economic and cultural influence.
Jordanians responded in part to the development of Palestinian economic and cultural elites by upgrading education. By the late 1980s, the gap between Transjordanian and Palestinian educational achievements had narrowed considerably. Jordan's position also was changing in the global political economy. Agriculture and nomadism had gradually given way to more viable livelihoods based on skilled labor, secular education, and increasing levels of literacy. Labor migration, particularly of the skilled and educated, was a key factor in social mobility in the 1970s and 1980s. A concomitant shift in values was apparent: prestige was increasingly associated with modern occupations, and education came to be seen as the key to social mobility.
Aside from the fundamental distinction between Jordanians of East Bank origin and those of Palestinian origin, other sociocultural distinctions or affiliations were evident in Jordanian society, including ethnic and regional origins, gender, class, tribe, religion, and life-style (e.g., nomadic, village, or urban). These various patterns of affiliations structured the ways in which Jordanians related to one another and gave rise to different sorts of individual identity. For example, most Christian Jordanians were Arabs and shared many cultural habits and values with Muslim Jordanians. Their sense of identity, however, was based less on Islamic influences than that of Muslim Jordanians. Christians interacted daily with Muslims, working, studying, and socializing together. But intermarriage between Muslims and Christians remained infrequent in the late 1980s. Little information was available on the extent to which these social interactions contributed to conflict or tension. The most that observers could conclude was that religious differences carried a potential for conflict.
Class structure in Jordan was exceedingly difficult to assess. Many social divisions, such as East Bank or Palestinian origins and identity, tribal affiliation, ethnicity, and rural or urban lifestyle, cut across class divisions. The forces of the political economy in the late 1970s and 1980s were forging embryonic classes; however, it was debatable to what extent they were self-conscious and cohesive.
Class structure in Jordan resembled a pyramid. At the top was a small, wealthy group comprising large landowners, industrialists, leading financial figures, and members of their families. The oil boom of the 1970s and early 1980s also had created a new class of wealthy Jordanians who made large amounts of money abroad, which was displayed by conspicuous consumption at home in Jordan. Just below this group were professionals, army officers, and government officials who lived a somewhat less grand but still comfortable life. White-collar workers, schoolteachers, and returning migrants struggled to retain a style of life that separated them socially from the small shopkeepers and artisans below them. At the bottom of the pyramid, a large lower class included increasing numbers of the unemployed. The system of family support tended to cushion unemployed university graduates and professionals from falling into the ranks of the poor.
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