Jamaica’s Middle Class Losing Hope

It’s a hot Caribbean afternoon, and Barry Owens is sweltering in a garage piled high with remnants of the comfortable life he tried to build for his family.

“A man can’t make any money around here, and when he does it’s monkey money--worthless,” says the 45-year-old stockbroker, who was born in Jamaica, grew up in England and returned 22 years ago with “great hope.”

Near-daily murders, ferocious drug gang wars, a deepening economic morass, riots and--perhaps worst--the scant chance of improvement have dashed that hope.

Up the street is another garage sale with a similar story, one that is quietly unfolding throughout this Caribbean island: Many members of Jamaica’s middle class are leaving--and more are thinking about it.

“People are fed up with high levels of violence and the deep recession that the economy is in, without any prospect of turning around,” says Barry Chevannes, dean of the University of the West Indies’ Faculty of Social Sciences.

The decline dates back to a banking collapse in 1996. The government took over failing banks and insurance and investment companies, borrowing heavily--conservative estimates start at $1 billion--to bail them out. That drove interest rates toward 40%, badly squeezing businesses.

“They’re losing their businesses, and in a shrinking economy there’s little hope of starting new ones,” Dennis Morrison, an economic analyst, says of small business owners.

Jamaica’s average annual income is $8,000, and the government says unemployment is running 15.5%, though Morrison and other economists say it’s closer to 20% or 25%.

While the economy has shrunk, the youth population has grown, meaning young people find it harder and harder to find jobs, which translates into growing crime.

Among a population of 2.6 million, 953 people were murdered last year--more than double the number 15 years ago. Homicides are running about the same this year, and a string of high-profile slayings, such as the death of an elderly former government minister in an apparent robbery in August, shows no one is immune.

“People are afraid they are going to be shot,” says Dawn Ritch, a columnist for Kingston’s Gleaner newspaper who writes about social issues. The people leaving are MBAs, accountants, engineers, she says. “They don’t want to raise their kids in this kind of environment.”

Such people lack the resources of Jamaica’s small wealthy class to insulate themselves from the problems. But unlike the masses of poor, they do have enough money to leave for colder but safer climes in countries such as Canada, the United States and Jamaica’s former colonizer, Britain.

The British High Commission says immigrant applications are running 15% ahead of last year, which ended with 311 permits granted, itself a 27% rise from 1997.

However, the commission says, the real immigration number is higher because many of those moving to Britain already have British passports.

Emigration is a sensitive subject for a people who, however depressed, remain highly patriotic. Many Jamaicans who are leaving say they hope to return.

Shipping and real estate agents say business is booming because of the departures. “Everyone else may be suffering, but I’m not,” says the director of a shipping company.

Adding that he doesn’t want to be identified, he says: “If I tell you that the government can’t control crime, that the government can’t get the economy out of the gutter, then I risk losing any business I do with the government.”

Ralston Smith, an aide to Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, plays down the exodus, saying he cannot comment without seeing official statistics, which won’t be available before early next year.

“Jamaicans are a migratory people and can be found from Australia to Europe, and I don’t know if any significant migration is taking place,” Smith says. He notes that more Jamaicans already live abroad than on the island.

The current flight rekindles memories of a late 1970s exodus when thousands of wealthy Jamaicans fled. Then, Prime Minister Michael Manley was flirting with Cuba and communism, and political violence turned much of Kingston into a virtual battlefield.

John Williams, a 53-year-old owner of a small manufacturing business, says the situation is worse now. “I didn’t think about going back then,” he says. “But if I were younger and willing to start over, I might consider leaving now.”