Belizean Society - The Lower Sector

The Lower Sector

This sector comprises the bulk of the Belizean population and is popularly known as the grass roots or roots class. It, too, is stratified by occupation and ethnicity. The lower sector consists of unskilled or semiskilled urban workers, subsistence farmers, agricultural laborers, and the unemployed. These people share, in addition to poverty and generally poor living conditions, severely limited access to land, higher education, or any other opportunity to change their marginal status. Possibilities for mobility are a main dividing line between the middle and lower sectors of Belizean society.

The ethnic composition of the lower sector varies by region. Most of the country's urban poor lived in predominantly Creole Belize City. With a population four times the size of the next largest urban area, Belize City was home to over half of all unemployed Belizeans in 1980. Many of the employed are engaged in ketch an kill jobs, temporary unskilled manual labor.

Educational opportunities beyond the primary level are scarce for most poor urban families. Many children drop out of school before completing their primary education. Children who finish school often lacked the grades or financial resources to attend secondary school. Because the government generally awards scholarships according to academic performance rather than financial need, most poor Belizean families continued to lack access to education beyond the primary level.

In further contrast to the upper and middle sectors, many lower-sector households in Belize City are headed by single parents, usually women. Female workers generally receive lower incomes than their male counterparts, and women experience a much higher unemployment rate than men. In numerous cases, migration of both parents results in children being raised by siblings, older relatives, or friends of the family. Some of the more privileged members of Belizean society perceive that increases in juvenile delinquency, crime, and drug use among Belizean urban youth are directly attributable to breakdowns in family structure.

As with the population in general, a large percentage of the urban poor are young. Youth unemployment is high, and many unemployed youths in Belize City congregate on street corners or meet in storefronts known as "bases." These young people are known as baseboys and basegirls. More privileged members of Belizean society tend to categorize baseboys and basegirls as criminals and delinquents, although the only thing many are guilty of is lacking opportunities for education and meaningful work.

Still, the lack of educational and employment prospects for the rural and urban poor in the 1980s did lead to dramatic increases in crime, especially in the drug trade. By the middle of the decade, Belize had become the fourth largest exporter (after Mexico, Colombia, and Jamaica) of marijuana to the United States. By 1987, crack cocaine and gangs had established a foothold among the youthful population of Belize City. By 1991, both gang membership and gang warfare had escalated dramatically, moving off the street corners of the poorer neighborhoods into the schools and major public spaces of Belize City. Gangs, drugs, and violence were the dominant realities with which nearly all Belizean urban youth, especially the poor, had to deal.

Extremely limited access to education and well-paying jobs characterize conditions for the poor in the district towns of Belize. But many people perceive the conditions in these towns as less severe than in Belize City. One exception was Orange Walk, which was known as Rambo Town, owing to the intensity of drug-related violence there in the mid-1980s.

The most limited opportunities for education and economic advancement are found in rural areas. Rural primary schools have much higher rates of absenteeism and attrition than urban schools, and all but three secondary schools are located in Belize City or the major district towns. Furthermore, the demands of agricultural work often prevent many children from attending school.

The rural poor are mostly Mayan and Mestizo subsistence farmers and agricultural laborers, although some Creole and Garifuna families are also included in this category. At the very bottom of both the rural and urban social hierarchies, however, are the Central American aliens who are employed in the lowest paid, least desirable occupations, such as unskilled labor in the sugar, citrus, banana, and marijuana industries.