Brief overview of Caribbean countries based on standardized household surveys

ECLAC regularly compiles and harmonizes data from household surveys for Latin American countries. The harmonization of information allows the production of comparable indicators and enables undertaking comparative analysis across countries. For this instance, ECLAC’s Statistics Division has extended this work to include household surveys from Caribbean countries, with the support from ECLAC subregional headquarters for the Caribbean. This document takes advantage of the harmonization work of the surveys to present an overview of the social indicators in ten Caribbean countries or territories: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Turks and Caicos Islands. The availability of surveys varies by country: in seven countries, surveys date from the mid-2000s and more recent data is available only for three countries. Therefore, the purpose is not to assess the most up-to-date situation but to illustrate the possibilities of comparative analysis offered by the harmonization of surveys.