“Cuba is a country of old people,” economist Isabella Perez, who is part of 300,000 Cubans who decided to leave the island in 2022 in pursuit of their dreams, told her father in Havana, during an investigation by the official national statistics office ( Onei) corroborated that statement.
Perez is part of the fourth generation born after the revolution’s victory in 1959, when Cuba’s population was about six million, and his decision to emigrate is part of a trend that is growing amid the worst economic crisis in memory. island in this century.
Meanwhile, Juan Carlos Alfonso, director of Scientific Investigations, ONEI, reported that “in 2022 Cuba recorded 95 thousand 403 births, the lowest number in the last 60 years”, while there were about 120 thousand deaths in the same period.
“The country is the oldest in Latin America and the Caribbean,” the researcher said at a press conference, after acknowledging that the only indicator that is increasing is the number of elderly people, a region that accounts for 23.3% of the island’s population.
For his part, Diego Enrique González, director of the Center for Population and Development Studies, pointed out that “if current trends are not reversed, which appears unlikely,” the island’s population could exceed 11 million inhabitants today. less than nine
“In 2025, it will fall below 11 million inhabitants, after 17 years it will fall below 10 million and in the next 12 years it will fall below 9 million,” he said. People in Cuba dance even if they have gray hair (Photo: Manuel Juan Somoza)
Life expectancy in Cuba is about 77 years, which is an indicator for a developed country, but since 1977 the necessary level of population replacement has not been reached, therefore more of a concern for the island’s government in their long-term development plans. There is a possibility.
Both researchers agreed that demographic aging in Cuba has a majority female component. Women have a higher life expectancy than men and the number of elderly women is higher than men.
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