2011 Census of Population & Housing - Jamaica
Ethnicity and Religion While these topics are described in very general terms by the United Nations Recommendations and are proposed as “other useful topics” (United Nations 2008) rather than “recommended topics”, they are proposed as core topics for Caribbean censuses because of the racial and religious diversity of these populations. With changing social and political climates, race for most societies has come to be defined in social rather than biological terms. For Jamaica the responses from the census are considered to reflect more of people’s perception of themselves rather than ascription to a particular group on the basis of physical appearance. Testing of this question for Jamaican censuses evoke very interesting responses as many persons appear confused by the question “To which race or ethnic group would you say you belong?” Census Takers are instructed to read the categories as written on the questionnaire and to accept the respondent’s reply. The instructions even suggest that the Census Taker might remind the respondent of the Jamaican motto “Out of Many One People.” The response categories for 2011 were exactly the same as for 2001 and both sets of responses are shown below. Table (xii) Percentage Distribution of the Population by Ethnic Origin: 2001 and 2011 Ethnic Origin
2011
2001
Total
2,683,707
2,595,962
Black
92.11
91.61
East Indian
0.75
0.89
Mixed
6.06
6.21
Chinese
0.19
0.20
White
0.16
0.18
Other
0.07
0.08
Not Reported
0.65
0.82
The responses for the ‘Other’ categories which were written on the form but not coded separately are being manually extracted for analysis and presentation in a future report. One of the most requested items of census data is religion. Unfortunately it poses considerable problems for data collection. There are numerous churches and congregations in Jamaica and there is a limit for identification on the census questionnaire. Additionally, care has to be taken in combining groups to avoid conflicts of beliefs and practices. Table (xiii) shows the responses for the 23 categories listed for this topic.
xiv