Emigration from Jamaica

Abstract

International migration has played a more important part in the demographic history of the Caribbean than in most developed countries outside the Americas and Australasia, and Jamaica is no exception to this rule. For the last 100 years emigration has been a feature of Jamaican society, with the exception of the period 1921–43, when the net movement was inwards due to the decline of employment opportunities abroad. Until 1921 emigration from Jamaica was largely to nearby territories in the Americas, including Panama and Latin America, and, later, Cuba and the United States. Volume was however small, net emigration being 2480 in the decade 1881–91, 2200 in the twenty-year period 1891–1911, and 7710 in the decade 1911–21. These figures are small even compared with most of the annual net emigration totals for the years since 1950, as Table 6.1 shows.