Jamaicans

Last updated

Jamaicans
Flag of Jamaica.svg
Total population
c. 4.4 million
2,683,707 (2011 census) [1]
Regions with significant populations
Jamaica   2,827,695 [2] [3]
United States1,100,000+ [4]
United Kingdom800,000+ [5]
Canada309,485 [6]
Costa Rica 64,000+ [7]
Cayman Islands 21,888 [8]
Trinidad and Tobago 15,000
Antigua and Barbuda 12,000 [9]
The Bahamas 5,572 [10]
Germany 4,000 [11]
The Netherlands 1,971 [12]
Australia 1,092 [5]
Japan 945 [13]
Languages
English, Jamaican Patois
Religion
Primarily Protestantism [14]

Jamaicans are the citizens of Jamaica and their descendants in the Jamaican diaspora. The vast majority of Jamaicans are of Sub-Saharan African descent, with minorities of Europeans, Indians, Chinese, Middle Eastern, and others of mixed ancestry. The bulk of the Jamaican diaspora resides in other Anglophone countries, namely Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Jamaican populations are also prominent in other Caribbean countries, territories and Commonwealth realms, where in the Cayman Islands, born Jamaicans, as well as Caymanians of Jamaican origin, make up 26.8% of the population. [15] Outside of Anglophone countries, the largest Jamaican diaspora community lives in Costa Rica, where Jamaicans make up a significant percentage of the population. [7]

Contents

History

According to the official Jamaica Population Census of 1970, ethnic origins categories in Jamaica include: Black (Mixed); Chinese; East Indian; White; and 'Other' (e.g.: Syrian or Lebanese). [1] Jamaicans of African descent made up 92% of the working population. Those of non-African descent or mixed race made up the remaining 8% of the population. [16]

Self-identified ethnic origin

Responses of the 2011 official census. [1]

Ethnic originPopulationMalesFemalesPercentage
Black 2,471,9461,226,0261,245,92092.1
Chinese 5,2282,8802,3480.2
Mixed162,71873,29389,4256.0
East Indian 20,06610,4919,5750.7
White 4,3652,1922,1730.2
Other1,8989709280.1
Not Reported17,4868,6388,8480.6
Total2,683,7071,324,4901,359,217100.0%
source [1]

Religion

Denomination 2011 census [1]
NumberPercentage
Christian
     Anglicanism 74,891
     Baptists 180,640
     Brethren 23,647
     Baptists 20,872-
     Brethren 9,7581.0
    Church of God in Jamaica129,544-
    Church of God of Prophecy121,400-
    New Testament Church of God192,086-
    Other Church of God246,838-
     The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (2021) [17] 6,718-
     Jehovah's Witnesses 50,8492.0
     Methodist 43,3362.0
     Moravian 18,351
     Pentecostal 295,195
     Rastafari 29,026
     Revivalist 36,296
     Roman Catholic 57,946
     Seventh-day Adventist 322,228-
     United Church 56,360
Baháʼí 269
Hinduism 1,836-
Islam 1,513-
Judaism 506
Other Religion/Denomination169,014-
Totals, specified religions100.00
No Religion/Denomination572,008-
Not reported60,326-
Totals, Jamaica2,683,105100.00

Diaspora

Many Jamaicans now live overseas and outside Jamaica, while many have migrated to Anglophone countries, including over 400,000 Jamaicans in the United Kingdom, over 300,000 in Canada and 1,100,000 in the United States. [18]

There are about 30,500 Jamaicans residing in other CARICOM member including the Bahamas, Cuba, Antigua & Barbuda (12,000), [9] Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago. [19] There are also communities of Jamaican descendants in Central America, particularly Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. Most of Costa Rica's Afro-Costa Rican and Mulatto population, which combined represents about 7% of the total population, is of Jamaican descent. [20] [21]

Notable Jamaicans

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of Antigua and Barbuda</span> National demographics

This article is a demography of the population of Antigua and Barbuda including population density, ethnicity, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of Costa Rica</span>

This is a demographic article about Costa Rica's population, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caribbean Community</span> Regional intergovernmental organisation

The Caribbean Community is an intergovernmental organisation that is a political and economic union of 15 member states and five associated members throughout the Americas and Atlantic Ocean. It has the primary objective to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and coordinate foreign policy. The organisation was established in 1973, by its four founding members signing the Treaty of Chaguaramas. Its primary activities involve:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglo-Americans</span> Demographic group in Anglo-America

Anglo-Americans are a demographic group in Anglo-America. It typically refers to the predominantly European-descent nations and ethnic groups in the Americas that speak English as a native language, making up the majority of people in the world who speak English as a first language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicaraguans</span> People of Nicaragua

Nicaraguans are people inhabiting in, originating or having significant heritage from Nicaragua. Most Nicaraguans live in Nicaragua, although there is also a significant Nicaraguan diaspora, particularly in Costa Rica and the United States with smaller communities in other countries around the world. There are also people living in Nicaragua who are not Nicaraguans because they were not born or raised in Nicaragua nor have they gained citizenship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economy of North America</span>

The economy of North America comprises more than 596 million people in its 24 sovereign states and 15 dependent territories. It is marked by a sharp division between the predominantly English speaking countries of Canada and the United States, which are among the wealthiest and most developed nations in the world, and countries of Central America and the Caribbean in the former Latin America that are less developed. Mexico and Caribbean nations of the Commonwealth of Nations are between the economic extremes of the development of North America.

Latin Americans are the citizens of Latin American countries.

Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Africa. The majority of the modern Afro-Caribbean people descend from the Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the trans-Atlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries to work primarily on various sugar plantations and in domestic households. Other names for the ethnic group include Black Caribbean, Afro or Black West Indian or Afro or Black Antillean. The term Afro-Caribbean was not coined by Caribbean people themselves but was first used by European Americans in the late 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbadians</span> People who are identified with the country of Barbados

Barbadians, more commonly known as Bajans are people who are identified with the country of Barbados, by being citizens or their descendants in the Bajan diaspora. The connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Bajans, several of those connections exist and are collectively the source of their identity. Bajans are a multi-ethnic and multicultural society of various ethnic, religious and national origins; therefore Bajans do not necessarily equate their ethnicity with their Bajan nationality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic groups in Central America</span>

Central America is a subregion of the Americas formed by six Latin American countries and one (officially) Anglo-American country, Belize. As an isthmus it connects South America with the remainder of mainland North America, and comprises the following countries : Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamaican diaspora</span>

The Jamaican diaspora refers to the body of Jamaicans who have left the country of Jamaica, their dispersal and to a lesser extent the subsequent developments of their culture. Jamaicans can be found in the far corners of the world, but the largest pools of Jamaicans, outside of Jamaica itself, exist in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, the Cayman Islands and all across the Caribbean Coast of Central America, namely Panama, Cuba, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epsy Campbell Barr</span> Costa Rican politician and economist

Epsy Alejandra Campbell Barr is a Costa Rican politician and economist who served as the Vice-president of Costa Rica from 8 May 2018 to 8 May 2022. She is the first woman of African descent to be vice president in Costa Rica and in Latin America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caribbean</span> Region to the east of Central America

The Caribbean is a subregion of the Americas that includes the Caribbean Sea and its islands, some of which are surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some of which border both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean; the nearby coastal areas on the mainland are sometimes also included in the region. The region is south-east of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of Central America, and north of South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guyanese people</span> South American ethnic group

The people of Guyana, or Guyanese, come from a wide array of backgrounds and cultures including aboriginal natives, African and Indian origins, as well as a minority of Chinese and European descendant peoples. Demographics as of 2012 are Indo-Guyanese 39.8%, Afro-Guyanese 30.1%, mixed race 19.9%, Amerindian 10.5%, other 1.5%. As a result, Guyanese do not equate their nationality with race and ethnicity, but with citizenship. Although citizens make up the majority of Guyanese, there is a substantial number of Guyanese expatriates, dual citizens and descendants living worldwide, chiefly elsewhere in the Anglosphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afro-Nicaraguans</span> Nicaraguans of African descent

Afro-Nicaraguans are Nicaraguans of Sub-Saharan African descent. Five main distinct ethnic groups exist: The Creoles who descend from Anglo-Caribbean countries and many of whom still speak Nicaragua English Creole, the Miskito Sambus descendants of Spanish slaves and indigenous Central Americans who still speak Miskito and/or Miskito Coast Creole, the Garifunas descendants of Zambos expelled from St. Vincent who speak Garifuna, the Rama Cay zambos a subset of the Miskito who speak Rama Cay Creole, and the descendants of those enslaved by the Spanish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Costa Ricans</span> People from the country of Costa Rica

Costa Ricans are the citizens of Costa Rica, a multiethnic, Spanish-speaking nation in Central America. Costa Ricans are predominantly Castizos, other ethnic groups people of Indigenous, European, African and Asian descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reparations for slavery</span> Political justice concept

Reparations for slavery is the application of the concept of reparations to victims of slavery and/or their descendants. There are concepts for reparations in legal philosophy and reparations in transitional justice. Reparations can take many forms, including practical and financial assistance to the descendants of enslaved people, acknowledgements or apologies to peoples or nations negatively affected by slavery, or honouring the memories of people who were enslaved by naming things after them.

The economy of the Americas comprises more than 1 billion people in 35 different countries and 18 territories. Sometimes divided into the continents of North America and South America depending on the source, like other continents, the wealth between the states in the Americas varies considerably, with significant wealth inequality within nations. The difference in wealth across the Americas can be seen roughly between the economies of North America and South America, with the countries in the former significantly better off than those in the latter.

At the 2011 census, the number of immigrants in Costa Rica totaled about 390,000 individuals, or about 9% of the country's population. Following a considerable drop from 1950 through 1980, immigration to Costa Rica has increased in recent decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Latin America and the Caribbean</span> Subregion of the Americas

The term Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is an English-language acronym referring to the Latin American and the Caribbean region. The term LAC covers an extensive region, extending from The Bahamas and Mexico to Argentina and Chile. The region has over 670,230,000 people as of 2016, and spanned for 21,951,000 square kilometres (8,475,000 sq mi).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "2011 Census of Population by Sex and Religious Affiliation/Denomination by Parish (P. 80)". issuu.com. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  2. "World Population Prospects 2022". United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  3. "World Population Prospects 2022: Demographic indicators by region, subregion and country, annually for 1950-2100" (XSLX) ("Total Population, as of 1 July (thousands)"). United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  4. "2013 census". United States Census. Archived from the original on 2020-02-12. Retrieved 2016-06-16.
  5. 1 2 "World Migration". iom.int. 15 January 2015. Archived from the original on 1 May 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  6. "Census Profile, 2016 Census – Canada". Statistics Canada. Retrieved 2020-04-24.
  7. 1 2 "The Story Behind Jamaicans in Costa Rica".
  8. "Labour Force Survey Spring 2022" (PDF).
  9. 1 2 "PM Golding Calls on Jamaicans in Antigua & Barbuda to Co-Operate with Government & People There". Jamaica Information Service. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  10. "The Nassau Guardian Home - The Nassau Guardian". The Nassau Guardian.
  11. "Immigrant and Emigrant Populations by Country of Origin and Destination" . Retrieved 2023-10-31.
  12. Bevolking; herkomstgroepering, generatie, geslacht en leeftijd, 1 januari, CBS, geraadpleegd op 5 juli 2014, 20 oktober 2018 en 9 februari 2020, 24 mei 2020.
  13. "在留外国人統計" (in Japanese). 15 December 2023. Retrieved 28 April 2024.
  14. "Jamaica - Religion", Encyclopædia Britannica online.
  15. "Demographic Characteristics" (PDF).
  16. Jamaica Population Census 1970.
  17. "Statistics and Church Facts | Total Church Membership". newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  18. "Jamaica: From Diverse Beginning to Diaspora in the Developed World".
  19. "30,000 Jamaicans residing in other CARICOM member states". caricomnews.net. Archived from the original on 2017-06-20. Retrieved 2014-04-24.
  20. Schulman, Bob. "'Little Jamaica' Rocks on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica". Huffington Post. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  21. Koch, Charles W. (1977). "Jamaican Blacks and Their Descendants in Costa Rica". Social and Economic Studies. 26 (3). Jamaica: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the West Indies: 339–361. JSTOR   27861669.