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On Nov. 20 and 21, everyone in Iraq stayed home, waiting for a knock on their door. Crowded highways were empty, bazaar shops shuttered. A team of around 120,000 specially trained census-takers fanned across the country for Iraq’s first national census in four decades. The last national census was held in 1987; the one held in 1997 excluded the Kurdish region.
The census results will shift the balance of power in the Iraqi Parliament, alter the distribution of crucial funding to provinces, and could aggravate long-standing territorial disputes between the federal government in Baghdad and the autonomous region of Kurdistan. For the international community, the census offers a chance to help Iraq improve its government’s performance and capture a potentially transformative demographic gift.
On Nov. 20 and 21, everyone in Iraq stayed home, waiting for a knock on their door. Crowded highways were empty, bazaar shops shuttered. A team of around 120,000 specially trained census-takers fanned across the country for Iraq’s first national census in four decades. The last national census was held in 1987; the one held in 1997 excluded the Kurdish region.
The census results will shift the balance of power in the Iraqi Parliament, alter the distribution of crucial funding to provinces, and could aggravate long-standing territorial disputes between the federal government in Baghdad and the autonomous region of Kurdistan. For the international community, the census offers a chance to help Iraq improve its government’s performance and capture a potentially transformative demographic gift.
Censuses get less fanfare than elections, yet they are enormous feats. A census requires what sociologist Michael Mann calls infrastructural power, a state’s ability to administer and manage, not just coerce. Teams must be capable of reaching the length and breadth of the national territory, having accurate knowledge of where to find people and the ability to tabulate and compilate. Most importantly, a census requires convincing people to comply in answering the questionnaires.
In deeply divided societies, a census can be the site of considerable mobilization and contestation. Lebanon still relies on its 1932 census, out of concern that updated results would further upset the delicate balance of power struck between Christians and Muslims in the country. And Iraq’s censuses, too, have been long delayed. What does this census—more than 25 years in the making—reveal about the country’s population after a period of seismic change?
Censuses do more than offer an accurate picture of a country’s demographics. They also shape nations. This is because census rosters become the building blocks for other governmental powers—monitoring movement, taxing revenue, and finding potential soldiers. Censuses can also cause social disruption. The U.S. census of 2020 was riled by controversy after the Trump administration tried—unsuccessfully—to add a question on citizenship status that many feared would bias results and lead to undercounting.
Iraq’s 1997 census, conducted by Saddam Hussein’s government, was about as credible as the 1995 Iraqi presidential referendum granting Hussein over 99 percent of the vote. It also pointedly excluded the three northern provinces that make up the semi-autonomous Kurdish region within Iraq; the region was established in 1992, after the 1991 uprisings attempted to topple Hussein’s regime. The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was able to hold elections in 2005 but abandoned plans to run a census. Indeed, for much of the 2000s and 2010s, Iraq seemed too unstable and the violence too severe to dispatch government census-takers to the streets.
Concerns about staff safety overlapped with political reluctance. After Hussein was overthrown, Iraqi politics evolved into an unwritten power-sharing pact between factions representing the primary ethnolinguistic groups of Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds. Few Iraqi leaders were eager to go forward with actually counting their numbers. Elections occurred regularly every three to five years. But Iraqi elites were simply too afraid of finding more reasons for conflict to confirm the demographic assumptions upon which their entire political system was based. As a Shia Islamist party leader said in 2014, “the lack of accurate census will not affect the social reality of the parliament that reflects the demography in Iraq.” It was better not to know.
Getting the 2024 census going in Iraq was a major undertaking outside of the historical setbacks. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani had to convince his fractious parliamentary coalition to agree to proceed. Sudani bet big on the census, declaring beforehand, “The census is not merely a collection of numbers. It serves as a dividing line between predictions and reality, and acts as a decisive tool for determining important and influential decisions.” U.S. officials and other foreign powers touted it as a major step forward. The United Nations Population Fund provided technical assistance and training. Chinese technology firm TrustKernel and other foreign companies were hired to assemble the tablets, design the software, and operate the data center and communication networks.
The census survey had 70 questions, focusing on basic information like sex, age, education level, and family status. Equally as important, the census did not ask questions about ethnicity. Many had feared that the census could be used to alter ethnic demographic balances in Iraq’s internally disputed territories.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has long maintained that the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, along with slivers of Nineveh, Diyala, and other provinces, are part of the Kurdish homeland. However, from the 1960s to 1980s, the Iraqi government sought to ethnically cleanse Kurds from these disputed areas and encouraged Arab transmigration to shift the demographic balance. Iraq’s 2005 constitution stipulates that a referendum would be held to allow residents to decide on whether to join the Kurdistan region, but the measure has been postponed indefinitely. While KRG forces seized the territory during the Islamic State 2013-2017 war, Iraqi troops and Iranian-backed militias retook the disputed areas shortly after.
The KRG fears that the census could set the stage for a government-run referendum in areas where Kurdish residents have fled. The federal government acknowledged that fear by writing the census to rely on people’s place of origin rather than their current residence, in an attempt to assuage concern and the potential for sectarian violence. It used information from the Iraqi migration ministry and the 1950s census for reference in the disputed areas. Still, this did not allay fears. KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani was guarded at best when discussing the census, emphasizing that it needed to remain neutral and free of political motivations, especially regarding the disputed territory. Alternatively, local leaders from the Kurdish, Arab, and Turkoman communities urged their supporters to participate in the census, including encouraging families that had relocated to return. At the same time, each faction accused their rival of defrauding the census-takers or falsely registering occupants.
After all that, and although full findings will take months to calculate, the initial census results affirm what many have long suspected. Iraq remains the largest Arab country by population east of the Nile River. But the census also confirmed that Iraq’s population (including foreigners) is over 45 million. The growth is striking considering the human toll of war and sanctions on the country over the last quarter century. Iraq, like many countries exiting long periods of strife, experienced a post-conflict baby boom that propelled a demographic recovery. Even so, the new figures exceed many expectations.
The census also underscored that Iraq has received a rare demographic gift. Over 60 percent of the Iraqi population is of working age (15 to 64). There are, in other words, a relatively small number of dependent children or older adults in the Iraq economy. A similar demographic dividend helped spur the so-called East Asian economic miracle and the rise of Asian tigers in the 1990s. If Iraq can turn its surfeit of labor into productive employment, the country could become a regional economic powerhouse.
The follow-on consequences could also be substantial. The Iraqi Parliament will have to add more seats in order to maintain the mandated ratio of representatives to citizens. With fertility rates highest in the primarily Shia provinces of the south, it was expected that Sunni Arab and Kurdish areas in the north and center of Iraq would lose demographic weight and relative political power. Government and international agencies like the World Bank will likewise have to revise how they allocate funding to provinces based on proportions of the population. Many expect that the census results will be crosschecked against government payroll rosters, curbing so-called “ghost employees” who kicked back most of their salaries to their political patrons.
The census is not the end, but rather the beginning of Iraq’s administrative and political reform. Whether the census enhances Iraq’s state capacity and leads to an improved economy depends on how Iraqi’s political elites respond to the results. Disregarding or delegitimizing the census results will further weaken Iraq’s state institutions, erode trust, and produce even more instability. It is important for the United States and its international partners to help Iraq build the momentum that the census has provided. This includes assisting Iraq to make the most of its demographic benefit and build a basis for productive employment. Reducing Iraq’s singular reliance on oil and associated public sector employment is critical. Public-private partnership and targeted foreign investment in agriculture, food processing, and the transportation sectors can help absorb Iraqi labor and diversify its economy.
Economic reforms must go hand in hand with the fight against corruption that has stunted labor productivity and siphoned off billions in government spending. The Sudani government, like its predecessors, has recognized the need for economic diversification and fiscal transparency but struggled to put reform into action. Each measure has faced pronounced resistance from within its own coalition. Consequently, Iraq’s demographic gift is already in danger of being squandered. Still, outside powers can help mediate and broker agreements to adjust the balance of power to account for the demographic realities and seize advantage of the new opportunities that the census underscores. Just as the international community can support democratic transitions by recognizing an election as free and fair, foreign powers can enhance the legitimacy of a census by urging all the actors to accept its outcomes and capitalize on its promises.