Editorial | Migration dilemma

It is, on its face, a vote of confidence in the country that a clear majority of Jamaicans (56.8 per cent) would stay put, even if they had an opportunity to emigrate.

Policymakers should, however, be cautious before they celebrate. For the flipside of that number is that four in 10 Jamaicans (43.2 per cent) would head for the exits if it were possible. Moreover, those who would stay are primarily older folks – people 45 and over.

Or, put starkly, given a chance, the vast majority of young Jamaicans – those between 18 and 34 who have a long stretch of their working lives ahead of them – say they would bolt if the chance existed. And the United States, even in the era of Donald Trump, remains the place of choice for half of the would-be immigrants, substantially outstripping any other country or region.

These findings, in the Don Anderson poll for the RJRGLEANER Group, again highlight the emerging demographic crisis facing the island, as Jamaica becomes greyer, population growth stalls, and the deepening likelihood that in a few decades there will be too few young people to carry the economic burden of the old.

Further, the impulse of young Jamaicans to migrate hints not only at the likely continuation of the island’s perennial brain drain, but at its implications for economic growth and national development.

NEW STRATEGIES

Against this backdrop, Jamaica has to, as Wayne Henry, the executive director of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) recently made clear, to accelerate the development of new strategies to deal with the issues of migration and the loss of skills. The old ones employed by Jamaica and its partners in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which have similar problems, haven’t worked, Dr Henry told a conference in Kingston

The Don Anderson poll, conducted between May 18 and June 7 among 1,033 adult Jamaicans, has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent. Notably, 56.8 per cent of the people who were steadfast about staying in Jamaica was below the 62 per cent who, in December 2013, told another pollster, Bill Johnson, that they wouldn’t leave.

Significant in the latest survey are the age profiles of the Jamaicans who would either stay or emigrate. Of people 65 and older, 86.5 per cent wouldn’t leave. That declined to 74 per cent in the 55-64 age group, and to 65.1 per cent among those between 45 and 54.

Which makes sense. The older people are, the less likely they are to want to start-over in a new country.

The script, however, is flipped among young Jamaicans. Over seven in 10 (71.2 per cent) of those 18-24 indicated that they would leave if they had a chance, followed by 65.8 per cent of those in the 25 to 34 age range. Further, over half (51.3 per cent) of those in the 35-44 cohort would be inclined to migrate.

The issue of outward migration, or course, isn’t new, or unique, to Jamaica. The problem for the island, though, is worsened by the fact that it loses, massively, its best educated citizens in their most productive years. Indeed, as an IMF analysis found, in the 35 years up to 2000, 85 per cent of Jamaicans with more than 12 years of education left the country. That was significantly higher than the regional average of 70 per cent, and second only to Grenada and Guyana, which were tied at 89 per cent.

Of tertiary-educated Jamaicans, 78 per cent went to the United States, compared to the regional average of 61 per cent.

PULL OF UNITED STATES

As the Anderson poll shows, among young Jamaicans. Migration in general, and the pull of the United States especially, remains strong, despite growing anti-immigrant sentiments in many countries, particularly the United States where President Trump has initiated crackdowns on most forms of immigration – illegal and otherwise – especially from developing countries.

The reasons why Jamaicans wish to emigrate are many. But perhaps the greatest push is the search for economic opportunities, given the island’s anaemic growth rates (averaging about one per cent annually) and widening income inequalities for nearly a half a century. Macroeconomic stability over the past decade has failed to fundamentally change that dynamic.

Migration, no doubt, releases some internal social pressures. Indeed, the more than US$3.3 billion (over 18 per cent of GDP) Jamaicans abroad send helps to keep families afloat and stabilise the economy. At the same time, though, the loss of large swathes of the educated workforce tells, in part, declining labour productivity (more than one per cent a year), and an economy mired in low-wages, low-technology and the absence of robust growth.

The urgency in dealing with these matters are amplified by Jamaica’s changing demographic profile.

Currently, 9.7 per cent of the population is over 65. By 2050 it will be 18.5 per cent. With outward migration and fewer Jamaicans being born, the population is in decline. If this trend continues, there will be insufficient working age people to fund the needs of the dependent cohort – older folks and children.

The required solutions are therefore urgent.