The most difficult task facing researchers in this country is finding reliable data and information that will help them produce something comprehensive as well as credible. The task is difficult for the obvious reason that, despite all the technology being used, our statistics cannot be depended upon.
What is published in the press is inconsistent, conflicting and generally unreliable and appears to have little to do with the realities that all of us know. Even population censuses carried out from time to time are not considered to be accurate; they either reflect numbers that are too high or too low.
The lack of reliable statistics has haunted researchers for decades now. Fifty years ago schoolchildren were taught that the Kingdom’s population was eight million. Today, statistics indicate a population of 12 million. No one is sure about the accuracy of either figure.
Look at the problem of unemployment, for example. You will find all kinds of contradictory figures that indicate the absence of a scientific approach to what is a very crucial matter. Some figures put unemployment at eight percent but these are challenged by others who say the figure may be as high as 30 percent.
No one seems able to produce a reliable and credible number that would help the planners to get to work on the problem. How can we possibly solve the problem if we don’t even know how many unemployed people we have and the percentage of males and females?
How can we expect to address social problems such as marriage and divorce if we don’t know the real statistics? Some speak of a high number of unmarried women, predicting their numbers will reach four million in only two decades. According to the director of statistics, however, there are no more than 70,000 unmarried women in the Kingdom.
As for divorce figures, those from the courts indicate a 30 percent rate in some areas of the country while the director of statistics says the rate is no more than 1.4 percent.
When will we establish a reliable means of providing correct figures that we can depend upon?
