Indian ocean - Individual countries
Mauritius
Seychelles
Mauritius
MINISTRY of WOMEN, FAMILY WELFARE and CHILD DEVELOPMENT (1996)
A Statistical Profile on Women in the Republic of Mauritius, Government of
Mauritius, Mauritius.
When one has laboured, sometimes in vain, in other developing countries, to find
statistics relating to the female part of the population, it is a delight to find the
necessary basic information gathered together in one slim volume (49 pp). Information
is available for the Republic as a whole and in disaggregrated form for Mauritius and
Rodrigues. The statistics cover population by age and sex, females by age and marital
status, marriage and divorce, birth and fertility, and death and life expectancy. There is
full and useful information on education: illiteracy rates, nursery/primary/secondary
enrolment figures by age and sex, examination passes and percentage of women
teachers by level 1988-94. The section on employment gives figures for the main
occupations in the islands and details of social benefits. There are also tables on
employees in Government Services by Ministry & by sex, and on the electorate and
elected representatives. This is a very useful source of reference and is available from
the Ministry concerned.
Seychelles
BENEDICT, M & B (1984) Men, Women and Money in Seychelles, California Press,
Berkley and Los Angeles.
Little is available on gender, education & development in Seychelles. A forth-coming
publication on girls' participation in education was unfortunately not ready in time to
include it in this Bibliography but there is an up-to-date study by Maryse Roberts
National Report on the Situation of Women in Seychelles (q.v.) covering women's
present-day status and legal rights, obtainable from the Seychelles National Gender
Unit. The publications of Burton Benedict, spanning over twenty-five years, have
analysed the whole social fabric of the Seychelles but this 1984 publication examines in
particular male/female domestic relationships. Only Part 2 of the book, by Burton
Benedict himself, is considered in this annotation.