Maldives

The Maldives consist of almost 2,000 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, of which approximately 200250 are occupied. It became an independent country in 1965, after years of Dutch and then British rule, and enjoys a relatively high standard of living primarily due to revenues from tourism and fishing. However, the islands are extremely low-lying and vulnerable to flooding if the ocean level rises due to global warming, and the country was hit hard by the 2004 tsunami, which caused 108 deaths and economic damage estimated at more $400 million.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was estimated at $500 in 2008, with a real growth rate of 5.7 percent. Population in 2009 is estimated at just under 400,000, with 22.3 percent age 14 or under, 73.8 percent age 15–64 years, and 3.9 percent age 65 or older. The population growth rate is negative (minus 0.168 percent) despite a high birth rate of 14.84 births per 1,000 population and a low death rate of 3.66 7 deaths per 1,000, due to high out-migration of 12.58 6 per 1,000. The total fertility rate (an estimate of the number of children born to each woman) is 1.9. The population structure is unusual in that males are more common than females in every age group: overall, the male/female ratio is 1.44 to 1, and is even higher in the working-age population at 1.62 males per female. Life expectancy is high for both males (71.8 years at birth) and females (76.3 years at birth). Literacy is also high, with 96.2 percent of males and 96.4 percent of females considered literate. The population is Sunni Muslim.

The Maldives spend 5.8 percent of GDP on health care, of which 87.7 percent is government expenditures. The per capita expenditure on health was $120 in 2002, of which $105 came from the government and the remainder from private sources. The standard of maternal and child health care is high, with immunization rates approaching 100 percent, 98 percent of pregnant women receiving at least one prenatal care visit (and 81 percent receiving four or more) and 70 percent of births attended by skilled health personnel. The maternal mortality rate in 2000 was 110 per 100,000 live births, the stillbirth rate was 25 per 1,000 total births, and the neonatal mortality rate was 37 per 1,000 births.

Save the Children, an international organization devoted to improving maternal and child health, places the Maldives in its Tier III or least developed countries group. Insufficient data were available to assign a rank on either the Mothers Index or Women's Index, but The Maldives ranked second out of 42 countries on the Children's Index, which takes into account factors such as the under-5 mortality rate, school enrollment rates, and percent of population with access to safe water.