Migration and Population

Aug 31, 2011 Editorial

The WikiLeaks revelation that the US had issued 73,000 immigrant visas to Guyanese between 1992 and 2004 should not have raised too many eyebrows. Every Guyanese family (at least on the coast) has at least one relative that has migrated during that time – and more importantly, have more than that with their “papers” filed. The US, of course, while being the destination of choice for most migrants, is more than matched by Canada and the illegal migration to a host of destinations.
By any measure, the number of migrants verify that it is the dominant explanation why the Guyanese population has remained almost stagnant between 1980 (759,566) and the last census of 2002 (751,233). During that interval, if one were to have extrapolated the population growth from the average births over deaths (around 14,000 annually), then the population should have increased by some 300,000 by 2002.
Emigration is not a new phenomenon for Guyana, but it was never on the scale to rival its neighbours in the Caribbean – especially Jamaica and Barbados – that started in the early decades of the last century. Our exodus began in the 1960s, which ironically, had been the beneficiary of the WWII baby boom – the largest in our history. The business class – made skittish by the left-wing politics then dominant – and led by the Portuguese, were in the forefront of that move: to Canada and not to Britain that had been the traditional destination. By then the British had begun to pull the shutters down on “coloured” immigration.
But the emigration took on a life of its own during the seventies, so that between 1970 and 1980, the population grew by a mere 8.2% as apposed to 25.2% in the previous decade. The trend accelerated and by 1991, Guyana witnessed its first overall fall in population – a decrease of 35,894 or 4.7% – compared to the 1980 numbers. These were the years, of course, that experienced the precipitous decline of the Guyanese economy under the policies of the Co-operative Republic.
The “return of democracy” in 1992, reversed the actual decline – but not by much – and certainly not to the pre-1970 increases. Emigration continued at a very high rate – and the census of 2002 showed only a small increase of 27,550 or 3.8% over the 2002 figures. It would appear that the pull factors from the destination countries – especially the developed north were outweighing whatever gains might have been instituted by the new regime. Or alternatively, the domestic push factors were not obviated. The numbers since 2002, as compiled by the CIA factbook, are not encouraging: they show minimal population increases in the first seven years and actual decreases in the last two.
At the macro level, there have been several views expressed on the almost static Guyanese population occasioned by the high migration levels. One, of course, was that for a country as large as ours, with its resources so widely distributed, the population would have to be increased for sustainable development. There has been talk that if the migration cannot be reversed, for whatever reason, then the government would have to institute a comprehensive programme to encourage immigration.
From a political perspective, another view has been that during the late seventies and eighties, the high rate of migration served as a safety valve for the then administration, acting as it did to reduce the pressures from a frustrated populace. The migrants were considered to be those from the educated middle classes, from which rebels and activists have traditionally sprung. There are some who believe that once again, migration is playing such a role.
Events unfolding in the US and Canada, however, appear to be replicating that of the sixties in Britain and which led to the closing off of that country as a migration destination. There are the collapse of the manufacturing sector, high unemployment rates, widespread poverty (comparatively, of course) and the almost obligatory backlash against “immigrants”. Policy makers should deliberate as to the consequences of such a shutdown of the “safety valve.”

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Migration and Population

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