Articles / data-notes

Why we show male/female ratios, and how to read them

لماذا نعرض نسب الذكور والإناث وكيف تُقرأ

2026-07-26

Everywhere on earth, about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. Biology starts the count tilted. Then life edits it: men die younger nearly everywhere, so older age groups lean female.

Migration edits hardest. Red Sea state shows more males than the national average because port work pulls in men. Gulf states are the extreme case; the UAE is roughly two-thirds male, entirely because of who moves there for work.

So when a state's ratio looks odd, the explanation is usually on a bus or a boat, not in a maternity ward.