Talk:Demographics of North Korea/Archive 1

Archive 1

Literacy

Are these figures considered accurate among academics and serious researchers? --Dpr 04:32, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

This caught my eye as well. It would seem like the UNDP has a policy of nation self reporting statistics to them? I'm going to do some research and see if I can find any support for the durrent numbers. -LouieS 17:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

It takes a speaker of Korean 2-4 hours to learn the alphabet. It takes a foreigner perhaps a day. Illiteracy is not an issue.

IIRC, my university's KS professor (not a Korean) mentioned a tradition of very high literacy in both Koreas without expressing such doubts. I think he gave a percentage of 90% or more. 00:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Check the CIA factbook - the data is very similar.

Literacy has been, since the start of North Korea, a massive priority in order to empower, mobilize, and propagandaize to the poor. The government made enourmous strides to wipe out illiteracy. The figures match that of the south and other nations according to the CIA factbook which does not simply use government figures. The notion that North Korea is a nation with a literacy issue is without merit and sadly a wrong impression that stems from anti north korean sentiment in the US. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Icactus (talk • contribs) 16:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

big block of text

this has loads of text before the introduction and not many pictures. i also has lots of text before the nav-bar thing (with links to places in the document). could someone please edit these problems? Fwed66 12:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've made a start (fix garbled text/diacritics, summon TOC to top, add wikilinks, add/update stuff) but don't feel like continuing. Wikipeditor 18:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Such is the price of using text from public-domain sources rather than writing it ourselves. Which is to say, I agree. Blech. -- Visviva 15:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Mistake

It must be a mistake - it's impossible that people here usually live more than 70 years and 54 percents are buddhists. It might be a propaganda :/ --86.100.66.70 (talk) 18:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I never got it, too. The figures, albeit by CIA, are either estimates or based on Juche-state's official data. It is highly unlikely to have 72 years (more than in a number of the EU states!) as life expectancy there in real life. It simply doesn't suit with the well-documented facts that millions of people are undernourished there in North Korea (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_undernourished_world_map.PNG). --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 16:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean "well documented"?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.115.65.15 (talk) 09:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Famines/Natural Disasters

Why is it that none of the population estimate seem to take into consideration the famines that by some estimates killed as many as 3 million people between 1995 and 1998. Also neglected is the fact that the North Korean population often takes the brunt of natural disasters from floods, mudslides, typhoons and other events due to poor infrastructure, planning and preparations.67.71.31.52 (talk) 23:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Wild guess from me is that "famines that by some estimates killed as many as 3 million people between 1995 and 1998" is pure western propaganda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.115.65.15 (talk) 09:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)