#BTColumn – Be wary not to led down the rabbit hole

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Ralph Jemmott

This year 2020, the figure given for Barbados’ population is 287,375 persons occupying an area of 166 square miles.
Some 92.4 per cent are of recognisably African descent.

Another 3.5 per cent is registered as white or of ostensibly European descent. 0.6  per cent are Asian with a marginal 0.1 percentage listed at Middle Eastern, mainly of Syrian-Lebanese ancestry.   

Black and white Barbadians have worked out a modus-vivendi, what one historian calls a “historic compromise”. Barbadians, Black, White and otherwise, treasure the social peace for which the country has become recognised and from which it has benefitted beyond measure.

In the 1950’s it was published that per square mile, Barbados had one of the more dense populations in the world.

Recently it has been suggested that Barbados is now underpopulated and that it is in seemingly urgently need to either increase its birth rate  or take in immigrants.

One UWI academic once made the incredible suggestion that Barbados could support a population of 735,000 persons.

Apparently the need, voiced by no less a person than the Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley herself is currently in the region of some 80,000 souls.

The Family Planning Association started in 1954.

Through its Pharmaceutical and Contraceptive Distribution Programme, it has apparently exceeded all expectations, so much so that Barbados now has a very marginal birth rate of 0.5 per cent per annum.

It is unlikely that we will see any tremendous natural increase in native Barbadians any time soon.

Middle class families have for some time been producing fewer children. A surprising number of bright young professional women are not marrying and having children.

Caught up in the revolution of rising expectations, the better-off have limited the size of their families to provide a better standard of material wellbeing.

Ironically it is those from the lower socio-economic strata that are getting the more offspring.

Last year one newspaper highlighted the plight of a 35 year old mother of eight who was seeking welfare relief.

The local Press frequently carries stories of poor, often undereducated mothers, (the fathers are hardly ever mentioned), seeking public assistance in raising children whose life chances, they have neither the material or cultural wherewithal to enhance.

This is the real source of much of persistent generational poverty and other social pathologies.

We not only need more Bajans but more productive Bajans.

Regrettably we may be producing too many young persons who seem to be “unemployed and unemployable”. The population issue in Barbados is just a question of numbers.

The imperative for a population increase apparently arises from the need to “grow out” the economy, one of those vacuous phrases that one is never sure what it really means.

Some contend that it is a matter of boosting the National Insurance Scheme, others of enhancing productive skills and still others see the need for having more consumers, apparently to consume more imported goods.

Perhaps understandably everything today speaks to economic survival which threatens to negate other equally important aspects of societal wellbeing.

One is not sure of the source of the figure of 80,000 and more importantly from where the New Bajans are to come and over what time span. Will they be people of  so-called “high net worth”, our future owners.

Will they be highly skilled individuals or economic refugees, “scrunters”, undercutting local wages and eroding the standard of living of an already marginalised black under-class. What race or races will they come from? Will their cultures be compatible with our own?

Where will they fit into the racially hierarchical structure of Barbadian society?  If they are white will they assume an attitude of racial superiority? If they are Asian, will they assume the psyche of cultural separateness and geographical distancing from the majority black population?

The Prime Minister often talks about “the kind of people that we are.” What kind of people will we be? Could an influx of immigrants supersede or significantly modify our identity
as Bajans? Maybe this is all part of the need to fit into an ostensibly progressive global world on whose markets we depend for survival.

In a small country, talk of population growth cannot evade the question of resources. Presumably the argument is that immigration will somehow improve resources. But if badly managed it can also be a burden on resources and an incentive to social contagion. Singapore has a dense population, but it is an ordered society.

Land is a finite resource. Food security is an imperative. Some percentage of arable land must be kept under cultivation.

Already land for housing is a scarce resource. 80,000 new Bajans could mean that it becomes increasingly impossible for native Barbadians to ever dream of owning peace of the rock. According to the Youth Minister, 30 perc ent of young Barbadians remain currently unemployed.

Barbadians must demand to know where their country is headed and not be led unwittingly down the proverbial
rabbit hole.      

Ralph Jemmott is a retired educator.