The island, with its fine natural harbor at Castries, was contested between England and France throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries (changing possession 14 times); it was finally ceded to the UK in 1814. Even after the abolition of slavery on its plantations in 1834, Saint Lucia remained an agricultural island, dedicated to producing tropical commodity crops. Self-government was granted in 1967 and independence in 1979.
NASSAU, Bahamas — An overview of the data collected by the Department of Statistics on births in The Bahamas over the last 40 years shows that women, domestic and foreign-born, are having far fewer children.
The data in the births report, collated from 1970 through 2010, show that with a population of about 170,000 in 1970, there were 4,894 live births recorded. Juxtapose those numbers against the 5,362 live births recorded among a population of more than 340,000 in 2010, and the downward shift is apparent.
The report also shows that the birth rate fell almost 50 percent, from 28.8 births per 1,000 persons to 15.8 births per 1,000 persons from 1970 through 2010.
The conclusion: Women between the ages of 15 and 49 were having an average of four children during the course of their lives in 1970. By 2010, women were only having an average of two children.
The data do not indicate why birth rates have dropped so dramatically, but a scrutiny of the numbers does uncover some interesting trends among particular groups of women.
Births by foreign women have dropped in the past four decades, from about 30 percent in 1970 to about 18 percent in 2010.
However, an unavoidable fact – as pointed out by The Nassau Guardian several days ago – is that the birth rate among Haitian women in The Bahamas has nearly doubled in the past 40 years.
“The number of births grew from 7.2 percent in 1970, to an average of 13.7 percent by 2010,” the report noted. “In contrast, births to women of Jamaican ethnicity declined by some 50 percent. For females from countries outside the Caribbean, the numbers of births plunged, especially since 2008 to (nearly zero) from 12.1 in 1970.”Read the rest of this entry »
Damian Marley Affairs Of The Heart official video has been released. Yes we have been in Carnival overdrive lately, however the sweet groove on this is a nice way to work our way back into listening to other genres from the region.
i/seɪnt ˈluːʃə/ (French: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean.[4] Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest ofBarbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 617 km2 (238.23 sq mi) and has a population of 174,000 (2010). Its capital is Castries. The island nation has been the home of two Nobel laureates, Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott. It is the nation with the second most such honorees per capita after the Faroe Islands.
