Mashonaland East
337,068
358,203
695,271
304,419
359,722
664,141
Mashonaland West
375,033
378,935
753,968
310,149
299,583
609,732
Masvingo
359,502
413,532
773,034
317,534
410,163
727,697
Matabeleland North
186,770
200,043
386,813
166,806
195,344
362,150
Matabeleland South
170,565
185,659
356,224
156,641
195,313
351,954
Midlands
405,201
438,487
843,688
369,895
407,153
777,048
TOTAL
3,176,880
3,434,005
6,610,885
2,823,203
3,050,911
5,874,114
The higher registration rate of women than that of men in the rural provinces, suggests
that the lower registration rate of women overall is on account of severe under-registration of
women in the metropolitan provinces.
This is confirmed when comparing Harare Province with Mashonaland Central (Figure
2), as examples.22 In Harare Province the registration rate of women is only 63%, against 83%
for men. In all instances when considering the registration rate, the general problem of over
registration for both genders must be borne in mind. Urban registration rates for women thus
appear to be extremely low. By contrast, in Mashonaland Central the rate is 92% for women and
90% for men.
Figure 24: Harare compared with Mashonaland Central23
0.25
0.20
0.15
Harare
0.10
Mashonaland Central
0.05
18 - 19
20 - 24
25 - 29
30 - 34
35 - 39
40 - 44
45 - 49
50 - 54
55 - 59
60 - 64
65 - 69
70 - 74
75 - 79
80 - 84
85 - 89
90 - 94
95 - 99
100-104
104-109
110 plus
0.00
Unevenness also emerges when individual constituencies are examined, and when
considering the registration rate of each gender in particular age bands. For example Beitbridge
East (a constituency selected merely because it appears first alphabetically) not only shows
considerable bias in registration in favour of women, and much higher than the 54:46 ratio of the
voters roll as a whole, but also reveals a marked (and sudden) increase in favour of women in the
number of people registered as voters in the over 50 age bands (see Table 8 below).
It is not possible to include tables of all the provinces here. This data can be received on request from
RAU.
23 The full data comparing Harare and Mashonaland Central is given in Appendix 5.
22
10