Census: Population’s age distribution skewed favourably by expat workers

The age structure of Cayman’s population is unique. The reliance on foreign labour for more than half of the islands’ workforce means that the local working age population is much larger than the global average.

Children and seniors are predominantly Caymanian. Children aged 14 and younger, for instance, make up 20.9% of the Caymanian population but only 9.8% of the expat population. Among seniors, aged 65 and older, 87% are Caymanian.

This is the result of non-Caymanians having fewer dependents on island and also being less likely to retire in Cayman.

This has important consequences for the standard of living, because it reduces the dependency ratio – the size of children and pensioner groups relative to what is deemed the economically active group of 16-to-64 year olds.

Of course, there are exceptions and many juniors over the age of 16 may still be of school age and not necessarily working, whereas many seniors are still employed.

This fact was underlined by Finance Minister Chris Saunders who, when presenting a summary of the census findings, noted that a third (33.5%) of the 5,414 seniors on island are still working.

Still, Cayman’s dependency ratio of 31.5% is well below the global average of 54.7%, Saunders said.

Most industrialised nations have much higher dependency ratios as they tend to see a decline in birth rates combined with longer life expectancy causing ageing societies. This is then associated with much-higher healthcare and elderly care expenditures.

Both the share of juniors under the age of 20 (20.5%) and the share of seniors over 65 (7.9%) are much lower than the international average. The median age in Cayman is 38 and the average age is 44 years old.

In this sense, having a large productive workforce relative to the total population is a boon for economic output, as well as for government revenues from labour-related fees and consumption taxes like stamp duties.

Likewise, government spending on transfer payments and healthcare is comparatively lower.

Only a handful of countries in the world have lower dependency ratios than Cayman, because, in the case of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or Kuwait, for example, their foreign working population is even larger.

In these countries, the number of men significantly outweighs the number of women because foreign workers are predominantly male.

In Cayman, this trend is not as pronounced: 53% are men, due to the diversity of Cayman’s labour market, but this translates into a national ratio of 52% men to 48% women, while among Caymanians, women are the larger group at 51.5%.