Growth incentives

Jeremy Stephen says country needs to take steps to increase population

By Jenique Belgrave

An economist has suggested that the Government should offer incentives to Barbadians to have more children as the country faces a declining population growth rate.

Jeremy Stephen is convinced that they will increase the size of their families if the powers that be entice them to do so.

“Governments need to incentivise procreation; don’t fool yourself. If the Government was giving me a $10 000 tax break for a child, I would have had ten children a long time ago…. This is how governments promote birth rates, and increasing birth rates all over the world is a government-led thing, and in our society, where we expect governments to lead, you would expect it should be a government-led initiative,” he said on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, a warning was issued in the draft Barbados Population Policy that if steps were not taken to counteract what is one of the lowest population growth rates in the Caribbean, there would be detrimental economic and social consequences.

Sharing that view, Stephen said that with Barbados already being an ageing society, the population would shrink in the next 10 years due to the birth rate remaining low.

The former President of the Barbados Economics Society pointed out that while the country currently has a stable population, the economy would be placed under more pressure to grow due to thousands of persons migrating abroad annually. This will continue, he said, unless Barbados opens its doors to more immigrants.

“Basically, tens of thousands of people leave Barbados every year to go abroad. So for every ten thousand that might be born, there are people not only dying – because we do have good longevity – but there are people leaving. So the population is relatively stable at 275 000 legal residents.

“So the point is that with an ageing population which is going to shrink – and although I support this – Bajans, in general, are not willing to import the people that we need, to drop a lot of the immigration restrictions to allow people to come and make a life for themselves here…. Generally, this is what we need right now,” he explained.

Stephen also suggested that Barbadians will be required to work for longer if its population issues are not addressed.

He was speaking at the Barbados Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (BANGO) final national debt consultation at the Barbados Yacht Club.

Pointing out that the island’s economy has lost competitiveness in major areas, including international business, he said that in their current state, the manufacturing sector simply does not have the capacity to be a major player in the economy’s growth, and the bread-and-butter tourism industry will not be as effective in driving the country as it was in decades past.

“I appreciate tourism, but I’m always upfront and honest. That is not the industry to lead your children that probably just did the 11-plus into the future. They should not be my age and still be thinking tourism is the most important industry to the country. If that is still the case, something is wrong. There’s too many factors of competitiveness that go against us in the current dispensation. And with the rise of artificial intelligence, it literally is making no sense to push even harder than we have before,” he stated frankly.

The economist said these factors have led to the Government continuing to borrow over time, and he expressed the belief that even without the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country would still have found itself in the current debt situation.

Stephen told the civil society organisations (CSOs) that the pandemic simply made the situation worse.

“Government should have, in an effort to do things right after the pandemic, become more efficient with how they allocate resources and put money in the hands of people that most need it. CSOs are the best to do that because they are in the community,” he said while advising the grouping to lobby more to have consultations with the Government to ensure the correct allocation of social programmes and policy decisions.

During his wide-ranging presentation, the economist also touched on the topic of debt cancellation, expressing his belief that it comes with a cost.

“I vehemently understand why persons want debt cancellation, but from my training, I know it is going to cause more harm than good.…The only way one can truly cancel debt, if you think about it philosophically, is literally to become a colony again. You have to give up something to cancel it, whether it be societal, economic or political,” Stephen asserted.

jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb