The Caribbean Netherlands are an overseas territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Unlike the Netherlands, which is located in Europe, three islands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba) are located in Central America (Slides 1 and 2). Another distinctive feature of the overseas territory is its lack of membership in the European Union. In other words, the islands of the Caribbean Netherlands are not subject to EU rules, regulations, and institutions.

Following our assessment of language competition in Latin America using French Guiana as an example (Parts I and II), we will continue with the Caribbean Netherlands. StatLine, the official statistics service of the Netherlands, offers a range of data points that provide insight into the use and competition of languages on these islands in 2013 and 2017/18. An assessment of the level of multilingualism in the population (15+) shows the changes that occurred between these two points (Slide 3).

Overall, it should be noted that the level of multilingualism in the Caribbean Netherlands is quite high – the population of this overseas territory is in the zone of stable multilingualism (the multilingualism rate, including the male and female population breakdown, is above the threshold of 70%). However, between 2013 and 2017/18, a significant decline in multilingualism was observed, as well as an imbalance between the male and female populations.

In 2013, the ratio of multilingualism between men and women was generally equal. Women were slightly better at this indicator than men, but the difference was not dramatic. Overall, the population of the Caribbean Netherlands, in terms of male and female multilingualism, was similar to the population of the European Union and several of its member states, where a similar situation was observed. Multilingualism was generally evenly distributed between men and women, but women's rates were slightly higher.

By 2017/18, women had significantly increased their multilingualism gap, by 7%. Women suffered the least loss in multilingualism compared to the general population and men. Men lost their multilingualism at a faster rate. Although both men and women experienced losses in multilingualism, it was men's contribution to the increase in monolingualism in the Caribbean Netherlands that proved decisive.

Leading analyst of IPER A.S. Airapetian

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