Wednesday, October 8, 2025
By KEILE CAMPBELL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kcampbell@tribunemedia.net
Bahamians have been told to have more children.
The country’s low birth rate threatens the long-term survival of the National Insurance Board, says Myles Laroda, the Minister of Social Services, Information and Broadcasting, who warns that too few workers are contributing to sustain future pensioners.
“We have a declining birth rate,” Mr Laroda said yesterday. “If you take immigration out of it, The Bahamas is far below. I think we’re talking about two plus percent growth. We are at 1.7.”
He said NIB’s sustainability depends on the number of contributors supporting each pensioner, describing six workers per retiree as “a healthy number.” When that ratio slips closer to three, he said, “that’s where issues begin to arise.”
“As it relates to the National Insurance Fund being sustainable, one of the variables is the amount of people who are paying into that fund per pensioner,” he said.
“So, for the fund to be able to continue for generations to come, we need more people coming in, and that’s only going to come from people who are having kids,” he added. “And so, you know, the word out from certain sectors to Bahamian citizens is: have more kids.”
Mr Laroda made the comments during the opening of a four-day workshop on sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence, hosted in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund. He said discussions on reproductive health must also account for economic realities, as declining fertility rates mean fewer contributors to the National Insurance Fund even as the number of pensioners grows.
His remarks reflect longstanding concern about the future of NIB, with successive actuarial reports warning that the fund is unsustainable without reform. The latest review projects that NIB’s reserves could be depleted by 2028 if contribution rates and benefits remain unchanged.
In July 2024, the government implemented the first of several planned contribution increases, raising the rate from 9.8 percent to 10.3 percent. Actuaries have advised that further increases — potentially up to 16.9 percent by the end of the decade — will be needed to stabilise the fund.
Mr Laroda noted that while the number of pensioners has more than tripled since 1984 — from about 13,000 to 44,000 — the base income for contributions has only doubled, widening the gap in sustainability.
He cautioned that if current trends continue, policymakers may eventually have to raise contribution rates further or reduce benefits.
Experts have warned that declining fertility is at the core of the issue. The Bahamas’ fertility rate of about 1.7 children per woman is below the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population, meaning fewer young people are entering the workforce to support an ageing society.
Mr Laroda said population growth and reproductive health are not isolated issues but central to the country’s economic stability and long-term development.
Comments
K4C says...
O GAWD, GET READY FOR THE I'm A MAN IDIOTS TO MAKE BABIES
Posted 8 October 2025, 10:13 a.m. Suggest removal
hrysippus says...
This is so wrong, it is blaming the victims of the government's decades long mismanagement of the nib contributions. An employee works fifty or more years paying money in every month; properly managed and invested this amount contributed should be more than enough to fund the pension payments through retirement. It is not because of the reasons previously stated, also NIB is overstaffed and many of the staff are way overpaid. It was never going to be sustainable from it's inception.
Posted 8 October 2025, 10:25 a.m. Suggest removal
ExposedU2C says...
Absolutely spot on!
Posted 8 October 2025, 5:08 p.m. Suggest removal
bahamianson says...
This article is troubling on many fronts and does not give too much optimism. Where are we going to get the children from? Majority of Bahamian girls have 6-8 for different boys before the age of 30. Same girls are jobless and living in cars. Are these children going to be able to read and write at an average level? Will they be able to qualify for an entry level job? Will employers have to foot the bill and train them? This is a disaster.
Posted 8 October 2025, 10:35 a.m. Suggest removal
Sickened says...
Instead of fixing NIB and firing the managers for investing in knowingly bad projects the solution is to have more undereducated, lazy and unwanted future gang member children????? Unemployed people and gang bangers don't contribute to NIB!
My lord this place is beyond failed!!!!
Posted 8 October 2025, 11:29 a.m. Suggest removal
Seaman says...
Stupid is what stupid says...
Posted 8 October 2025, 12:30 p.m. Suggest removal
Seaman says...
These are so called educated people....From the PM down seems to have lost their ability to think correctly.
Posted 8 October 2025, 12:47 p.m. Suggest removal
moncurcool says...
So having children will fix the problem.
Does this man not recognize that every child born you have to pay out maternity benefits for? And there is no guarantee that any of those children will ever contribute to NIB.
When will a politician who can think ever take about fixing the bloated expenses side and the slush fund side of NIB?
Posted 8 October 2025, 3:25 p.m. Suggest removal
joeblow says...
... a simpler solution might be to stop using NIB funds for capital projects and repay into it funds that were borrowed!! Secondly, responsible Bahamians might be able to have more children if they could afford them, but they are too busy being crushed by the cost of living and the higher taxes that go with supporting those who do not work!
Posted 8 October 2025, 4:42 p.m. Suggest removal
joeblow says...
... just yesterday his wife was talking about getting help to those women who need different menstrual products. So women can't afford to buy necessary hygienic products and this moron wants people to have more children who have to be housed, fed, clothed and educated??
Posted 8 October 2025, 4:51 p.m. Suggest removal
ExposedU2C says...
A big 'SS' for 'Super Stupid' should be tattooed across LaRoda's shiny forehead.
Posted 8 October 2025, 5:12 p.m. Suggest removal
TalRussell says...
Being a better earnings, educated and less segregated popoulaces' than in 1967, we must take into account, being that the Bahamas' income per popoulaces', **has increased significantly since 1967,** what it could've reached beyond today's estimated $36,780 in 2025. --- The largest moving from poverty to the middle class from early earnings' **$2,453** in 1967.** Far from as bad as some make it be. --- Although we should've reached USD$45,000 to USD$50,000 in per popoulaes' yearly earnings. --- Yes?
Posted 8 October 2025, 5:24 p.m. Suggest removal
One says...
It's a joke. They need more people paying into it than taking out of it, plus more to pay for their cuts, operational costs and inefficiencies in managing the money. The way these programs are supposed to work is 1) working people pay into it, 2) that money contributed today is pooled together and invested intelligently (not spent today), and 3) at the time of retirement, that invested money has grown significantly to pay the person who once contributed.
Currently, the way it's working 1) they've already mismanaged and lost the money of the people who are currently withdrawing, 2) NIB is a complete mess, 3) NIB immediately spends current contributions paying retirees and operational costs and losses, 4) no investment of the money, 5) they need more people (aka NIB wants more money).
Let it fail. and refund+interest all contributions of people who haven't had a chance to benefit from it yet. Why should the people be forced to contribute to a plan that is mismanaged and regularly threatens that it will not exist when current contributors are old enough and need to collect a pension? Let people keep their money if the program can't do any better with it.
Posted 8 October 2025, 7:31 p.m. Suggest removal
hrysippus says...
These comments by the unelected politician appointed to a well paid cabinet post plus the salary of other pm appointments , are commonly called "victim blaming".... it is all your fault, not ours, because you are not having enough unwanted children. Just so disgusting....how does he sleep at night?
Posted 8 October 2025, 8:37 p.m. Suggest removal
Log in to comment