During its plenary session on May 21, Parliament reviewed the results of the 2020 National Population and Housing Census submitted by the government on April 1.
Noting that the census was conducted within a week in accordance with the Law on Statistics and the Law on the National Population and Housing Census, Chairman of the National Statistics Office (NSO) B.Batdavaa said, “According to the census, the population of Mongolia is 3,296,866 and the number of households is 897,427. In other words, Mongolia’s population has grown by an average of 2.2 percent per year since the previous census in 2010. Moreover, the population of Mongolia remains young in terms of age structure. In particular, 31.5 percent of the total population are children aged between 0 and 14, 64.4 percent are aged between 15 and 64, and 4.1 percent are aged 65 and over. The number of children and the elderly is 55.3 per 100 people of working age.”
“The median age of the population is 27.9, an increase of 10 years over the last 30 years. In addition, 3.7 percent of the total population or 122,000 people have been living abroad for six months or more. Most went to study in India, Russia, China, Japan, Australia, Germany, Ireland, to live in Kazakhstan, Poland, the UK, and the US, and to work in South Korea, Czech, Hungary, Sweden, Turkey, Switzerland, and Poland,” he added.
According to the census, 46 percent of the total population lives in Ulaanbaatar, 19 percent in the Khangai region, 16 percent in the central region, 13 percent in the western region, and 7 percent in the eastern region.
Moreover, more than half of domestic migrants (68 percent) moved to Ulaanbaatar, while Orkhon, Darkhan-Uul, Selenge and Tuv provinces have the highest number of migrants.
There are 106,000 people with disabilities nationwide, which is 3.3 percent of the total resident population.
B.Batdavaa emphasized that 98.7 percent of the population over the age of 15 is literate, and 95.1 percent of the population over the age of 10 has some level of education. Nationwide, the average family size is 3.6 and the average age of first marriage is 27.7.
He also said that 87.8 percent of the total population aged six and over use mobile phones, while 64.7 percent are internet users.
“Nationwide, 59.7 percent of the total population aged 15 and over is in the labor force and 40.3 percent is in the non-labor population. The unemployment rate reached 9.9 percent in 2020, down 5.4 percentage points from the previous census. According to the housing census, 897,400 households live in 770,900 apartments. Moreover, 38.2 percent of all households live in a ger, 60.9 percent in a house, 0.9 percent in other types of housing, and 29.5 percent in fully engineered apartment. Based on the population and housing census in 2020, the NSO will calculate the population projections for provinces and the capital city in 2021, which will be used for policy and planning in all sectors, such as education, health, infrastructure and communications,” the chairman of the NSO said during the session.
Chairman of the Standing Committee on Economy J.Bat-Erdene said that by conducting the census, the detailed source of information, which provides up-to-date information to assess and evaluate the level of demographic, social and economic development of Mongolia, and to determine future trends was updated. The government believes that the data from this census have made a valuable contribution to national development and integrated policy and planning, he noted.
In connection with the report, some lawmakers clarified the possibility of short-term population and housing censuses, whether technological advantages were used in the census, how realistic the census results were, and how the data was planned to be used in the future.
Chairman of the NSO B.Batdavaa said, “In addition to the census, social and economic indicators are being conducted on the recommendations of the UN Population Census Program. Further censuses can be conducted annually and monthly.”
“Population projections are based on the census. Based on these projections, each sector can define its policy and plan its issues. The census was based on existing records in government organizations, and 10 percent of the census was based on the sample method. To test this, 10 percent of the population was randomly selected and re-evaluated. A total of 15.7 billion MNT was budgeted for the census. However, the use of state databases and advances in IT technology has resulted in cost savings, and a total of 8.5 billion MNT was spent,” he added.
Speaker of Parliament G.Zandanshatar noted that there is a need to develop a comprehensive policy to use the results of the population and housing census in conjunction with other data, so it is planned to establish a working group headed by lawmaker Kh.Bulgantuya.
