And while you might not have known that car drivers cause most motorcycle accidents, another interesting statistic which you might not have known was reported by the Ministry of Health and Wellness last month.
It is that the lowest number of live births since 1984 was reported in 2024. That's 5,791 live births - again - the lowest in 40 years! So why are people having fewer children? And what does it mean for society?
Economist Philip Castillo explained that it could be any number of reasons, but generally, educated women and better family planning may be at the top. He explained this to us via Zoom.
Phillip Castillo, Service Provider, FMSS, UB
"Generally, multiple reasons. Focusing on women, in general, women are getting more educated than men and an educated woman generally makes substantially better family choices. So an educated woman would tend to have less children."
"In general, as income levels rise, people generally have less kids so that is also a factor, I think that's happening in Japan where the population rate may even be declining because people are having far less children. The reason why some economist see it as a challenge is that what your birth rate does, your birth rate maintains the population. So a declining birth rate implies that your population is declining and then there are other associated variables such as your labor force that may also be declining."
"I wouldn't be unduly concerned. From an economic perspective, I wouldn't be unduly concerned because the birth rate contributes to the labor force but given where Belize is and given our history and our reality, we have workers coming in from neighboring countries, we've signed agreements with certain select Caribbean countries to allow free movement of nationals so I wouldn't be overly concern."
"It can have multiple positives meaning that a declining birth rate means that family sizes are smaller and the family unit, having less children, means that you have a better ability to care for those children. That has to be seen as a positive. Then there may be other, for women, it gives them the freedom that you have less children, you have more control over your life, that is seen as freedom. And there may be other reasons but you generally want in your population control policies, in your population policies, people want to have the number of children that based on their economic circumstances they could afford. And then if women are of the view that having less children is more affordable then that comes out far better for the society as a whole."
14% or 896 of the live births were to adolescent mothers between the ages of 10 and 19.
