DESCRIPTION OF SURVEY POPULATION 103 TABLE 3-11. DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONS BY RELIGION (NBS 1981) Percentage of Nepal's Total Sample N Estimated Population Religion 36,540 2,091 747 166 39,544 343 12,973,328 756,425 269,556 58,567 14,157,876 115,206 92.3% 5.4 1.9 0.4 100.0 0.0 100.0 Hindu Buddhist Muslim Other Subtotal Missing religion Total 39,887 14,173,082 Source: FR9.002 AN.245 TABLE 3-12. DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONS BY CASTE (NBS 1981) Percentage of Nepal's Total Sample N Estimated Population Caste Brahmin Kshatri Vaishya Shudra Other Subtotal Missing caste 6,726 6,817 19,488 5,353 915 39,299 588 2,398,866 2,442,863 6,867,809 1,930,497 329,780 13,969,835 203,247 17.2% 17.5 49.2 13.8 2.4 100.0 Total 39,887 14,173,082 100.0 Source: FR9.002 AN.29 (32.7%) of the population were children under age ten and older per- sons unable to work. Students accounted for another 7.6 percent of the population. The remaining occupation groups, government serv- ice, porters, businessmen, and others, account for only 4.6 of the population in Nepal. The distribution by literacy is shown in Table 3-14. Ap- proximately one-fifth (20.9%) of the population reported that they were able to read or write at least one language. The distribution by education shown in Table 3-15 supports the notion that as much as four-fifths of the population is illiterate. A total of 83.2 percent of the population reported never having studied in school. Another
