7 News Belize

Census Shows Telling Numbers
posted (April 29, 2011)
The full report on the 2010 Census was released today - almost one year after it was launched on May 12th of 2010. The exercise should have taken eight to ten weeks, but it took five and a half months to get to the seventy-nine thousand households across Belize - and then six more months to compile the information.

And it was all presented today - the good, the bad, and the scary.

Now, if you don't like numbers - and most of us don't - you might think the census report is just a big yawn. But it's not really, in fact the census findings reveal a whole lot about our collective identity for the place most of our citizens feel comfortable calling "Belice".

If that throws you for a loop - stay tuned, there's more in the full story:….

Jules Vasquez Reporting
One year after the census was launched the results were presented today at the university of Belize Jaguar Auditorium:

Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of Sports, Public Service and Governance
"The census is a very important national activity which incorporates a collection for monitoring and evaluation. It determines where we build schools, hospitals, police stations etc. in essence it determines policy formulation and guides the decision making process."

And the Census as a snapshot of Belize in 2010 reflects a country in transition - transitioning from churchgoing to uncommitted, for example:

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"The number of persons who said that they do not belong to any religion has doubled. In 2000 they represent a little over 9% of the total population. In 2010 there were upwards of 15%. It doesn't mean that they don't believe in God, all it says is that they do not align themselves with a religion. As you all know that woman cat holism remains the single largest religion in Belize. However their share has fallen from 50-40%. Well not so much in contract but we see it Pentecostalism increasing from 7.4 - 8,5%."

And transitioned from Creole to Hispanic:

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"Mestizo is the largest group with a share of 50% just up 1% point from ten years ago. Creole accounts for 21% which is down from 25% in 2000."

Louis Wade
"Define the word Mestizo please for us?"

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"We did not carry a definition of these ethnic groups. We had the term on our questionnaire and we ask the question and the respondent would say to which one they categorize themselves, so we had Mestizo, Hispanic and Latino as one option. Because some people would give you the term Spanish - I am Spanish which we know for the most part in Belize they are not from Spain and so all those persons would be classified as Mestizos."

And included under that vague mestizo heading may be the country's increasing number of Guatemalans:

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"The Foreign Born Population (FBP) represented just under 15% of the total population, about 38% of the foreign population arrive in the country between 2000 - 2010 inclusive. This approximates to about 1,500 persons annually. Guatemala remains the single largest source of foreign born persons and next to Guatemala it would be El Salvador and Honduras. Between those three countries, we are talking about 33,000 persons out of a foreign born population of about 46,000. In terms of unemployment you will see that foreign born persons are lower than the national average. 17.7% compared to 23% as mentioned earlier."

And a society where a secondary education is for the few and tertiary even more so:

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"We found that there were 88,000 persons who were enroll in formal education. The majority of these persons were enroll at the primary education level then you had about 17,200`secondary and tertiary which consist of post-secondary and university amounting to about 7,400 persons."

And a country where almost a quarter of the 131 thousand persons in the workforce is unemployed:

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"During the course of the census we found that there were about 30,000 persons who were without a job. This provides for national unemployment rate of about 23% which is a little higher than the 20% recorded in 2000. It is still the case that the unemployment rate of women is twice that of men, so men had an unemployment rate of 16,7%, women was 33.1%. In Toledo and Orange Walk and Corozal the difference was even wider, where women was as three times likely to be unemployed than men."

Cayo and Corozal had the highest rates of unemployment - but on the upside more Belizeans are living in concrete homes

Miriam Willoughby, 2010 Census
"More people then have concrete homes, than went up from 40% - 50% of all dwelling units in the country. The roofing material is saying that 80% of the roof for dwelling units in Belize are of sheet metal (zinc) and the change from 2000- 2010 is hardly anything. Then the flooring - more people have concrete floors than they did in 2000, so a typical dwelling unit in Belize would be concrete walls, concrete floors and sheet metal roofing."

And apart from living in cement, in a curious behavioral shift, Belizeans have abandoned the vat and the well increasingly

Miriam Willoughby, 2010 Census
"Then we ask about source of drinking water and you will see a huge change from 2000-2010 about 1.5 about households nationally compared with nearly 17% in 2000`used bottle as their main source of drinking water, so from 17% - 51% between 2000 and 2010 is a huge change, is a switch that people made to drinking bottled water."

And while there are a great many compelling factoids the bottom line of the whole exercise, the population figure 313 thousand.

Jules Vasquez
"I am greatly concern that the population which you had on your website due to forecasting growth I believe as 333,000 which is the number that we all have been using which is now 313,000, I am saying that I believe it's the product of under sampling."

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"As you said there are persons who might not have been counted. Of course I would say that sine people were counted. The 333,000 that was an over estimate."

And a reason for under sampling in the city may have been the crime situation

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"I would say though that the crime situation in Belize City has not been helpful to our work with the census. In other parts of the country our interviewers could work right up to 9 o'clock as long as the household would entertain them. That was not at all possible in Belize City, and when we had to so night work is was in fairly large groups for the safety of the interviewers."

Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of Sports, Public Service and Governance
"Every attempt was made by the field staff to count each and every single person living within the borders of Belize."

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"And I would say Jules that it was our strategy to try and count every media person because we know that if they are not counted they have the mic and they will let others know and i must say that we encountered resistance from some of them."

And the census shows that unlike everywhere else in the world that population is moving away from urbanization. Strange and counterintuitive but the SIB says it's real:

Jacquiline Small, 2010 Census
"I think Belize is a little bit unique in that it has its urban population is still significantly lower than its rural population. Overall the country is 44% urban and this actually a decrease from 2000. The normal trend is that the urban population would grow more than the rural population. It's more likely that the country become more urbanize as the years go but anyway."

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"Yes we could sit or stand here and argue about what should be rural and what should be urban and i guess we could spend a very long time at that but I would say that the definition that we have used is simply that all areas that are classified as towns or cities are considered urban, so if Ladyville is not a town then we would consider it rural."

That's only one of the curiosities we and others we've consulted - feel they see in the report. For example how can the average household size - meaning the average number of people living together in houses - go down from 4.5 to 3.9 when poverty has gone up and the Gayle report found that it was 6.5:

Glenn Avilez, 2010 Census
"I cannot comment on the 6,5 size that is in the Gayle Report but I will tell you I have much more confidence in the 3,9 since its covered the entire country. I don't know that Mr. Gayle has the resources to comb the entire country and come up with a good estimate of the average size household."

Other interesting facts coming out of the census is that Ladyville is larger than Punta Gorda Town with six thousand people - yet ladyville - home of the country's only international airport is still listed as rural, while PG because it is a town, is listed as urban.

Lord's Bank whose population has grown by 500% since the last census is also considered rural. The Cayo district is the fastest growing population wise, while Orange Walk is the slowest.

The fastest growing urban center is San Pedro town - but according to the census the population there is only eleven thousand, while we've heard figures as high as twenty five thousand. The experts warn that the unemployment figure is particularly high because the census was taken when many seasonal workers were off work.

There are many more interesting facts in the census and we'd wish to offer you an internet portal where you can view all of them - but the Statistical Institute hasn't posted it on its website and they failed to send the report to us as they had promised to do. We called the office in Belmopan multiple times this afternoon to make another request for the information, but they seem to have taken the afternoon off.

Now, as you heard in the story - we've questioned the total population figure especially since it is twenty thousand less then the SIB had forecasted it would be. Our anecdotal experience suggests that, particularly in the city, a fair number of people weren't counted in the census. It's just a hunch and we hope we're wrong, but you can tell us if you were counted by participating in our online poll at 7newsbelize.com. Log on anytime from tonight through the long weekend to tell us if you or your family was interviewed….

 Census Poll  
Were you interviewed in Belize's 2010 Census?
*Requesting responses from those resident in Belize between May 2010 - December 2010.

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