MINSK, 9 March (BelTA) - Preliminary figures show that there were 5.1 million women in Belarus as of 1 January 2017, or 53.4% of the country's total population. More than 78% of women live in cities and urban-type communities, BelTA learned from the National Statistics Committee.
There are 1,147 women per 1,000 men in the country on average.
The average Belarusian woman is 42.5 years old. Women living in cities are much younger than female rural dwellers (41 and 47.8 years old respectively).
The employment rate among women is high, some 64.1%. Every fourth woman engaged in the country's economic activity is under 31. 12.4% of employed women have already passed their active working age.
Healthcare, education, social, financial and insurance services are considered as traditional female types of economic activities. A teacher is the most popular female profession in the country.
64% of Belarusian women in employment have diplomas of higher or vocational education, compared to 44.7% of men.
Last year 117,800 Belarusian women became mothers, with 58.8% of them giving birth to their second, third and consecutive child.
The average age of first time mothers in Belarus increased from 24.9 in 2010 to 26.3 in 2016.
Last year a total of 64,500 women got married. 45,100 of them were married for the first time. The average age to get married for women in Belarus is 20-24 (33.7% of the total number of marriages). The same as many European countries, Belarus witnessed a trend of the increasing average age of a woman marrying for the first time (from 23.5 in 2005 to 25.6 in 2016). The typical woman remarried at 38.1. More than 1,000 women married at the age of over 60.
