1. Introduction
On 10 October 2010, a constitutional reform of the Kingdom of the Netherlands took place. On that date, the country the ‘Netherlands Antilles’ was dissolved. At the time, the Netherlands Antilles consisted of five islands: Curaçao, St Maarten, Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba. Aruba was previously also part of the Netherlands Antilles, but in 1986 was granted status aparte. This meant that it became an independent country, but was still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Since the constitutional transition in 2010, the Kingdom of the Netherlands has consisted of four countries: Curaçao, Aruba, St Maarten and the Netherlands. The former group of countries are also abbreviated as the ‘CAS countries’. The country of the Netherlands consists of a European part and a Caribbean part. The Caribbean Netherlands comprises the public entities of Bonaire, St Eustatius (English: Statia) and Saba. These three islands are also referred to as ‘special municipalities’ and by the abbreviation the ‘BES islands’. These six islands are known collectively as the Dutch Caribbean.
Since the constitutional reform came into effect on 10 October 2010, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) has been responsible for providing statistical information on the three islands of the Caribbean Netherlands (Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius). In order to fulfil this responsibility, a separate multi-annual programme for the Caribbean Netherlands has also been drafted (CBS, 2023). CBS also publishes periodic figures for the Caribbean Netherlands on a broad range of subjects at StatLine. The CAS countries each have their own statistics agency: Central Bureau of Statistics Curaçao, Central Bureau of Statistics Aruba and on St Maarten the Department of Statistics.
Since the constitutional reform, CBS text based publications on the Dutch Caribbean have also been entirely focused on the Caribbean Netherlands, with a few exceptions (Hermans and Kösters, 2019). For the public in the European part of the Kingdom, this also means that relatively little is written in the press about statistical developments in the CAS countries. On the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the current constitutional arrangement, it was therefore decided to take a closer look at all six islands that originally made up the Netherlands Antilles. This article is the result. It focuses on the current position of the six islands in terms of population, language, labour force participation, economic prosperity, etc., as well as how they have developed over the past fifteen years.
The figures used for the CAS countries are derived from the statistics agencies listed above. Not all figures were available for all countries. Moreover, there are some differences in terms of the methods used and reporting years. We have not attempted to quantify the effect of different methods. No analysis is offered of the causes of differences in developments, but here and there explanations are cited from the literature. What remains is a picture of the differences (and similarities) between the islands, with a small caveat with regard to the comparability of the figures presented. The article is aimed at anyone who wishes to explore the six islands based on the primary socio-economic data.
Chapter 2 describes the data sources and research method used. Chapter 3 considers the population sizes of the six islands and how they have changed over the past fifteen years. It also discusses the population composition, the languages spoken and the religions of the inhabitants. Chapter 4 covers labour force participation and educational attainment. Chapter 5 focuses on economics: how big are the economies, how have they changed over time and how are they structured? This chapter also looks at tourism and inflation. The final chapter, the conclusion, lists the main findings.