Party membership, social ties and upward mobility in Cuba

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.8.1.0028
• Pages: 28-55
• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Date: 01 April 2016
• Author: Sara Romanò
• Subject Matter: Cuba,social mobility,social inequality,Communist Party,social networks,transitional economies

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 8.1 SprIng 2016

ACADEMIC ARTICLES

PARTY MEMBERSHIP, SOCIAL TIES AND

UPWARD MOBILITY IN CUBA

Sara Romanò

University of Turin, Italy

Abstract

Several studies from transitional economies focus on the role of political credentials and

personal networks in favouring upward mobility. Nevertheless, both topics remained

empirically rather unexplored in Cuba. The present article quantitatively explores these

topics, thereby trying to fill these gaps. Survey data were collected in 2010–11 in Havana.

The sample is composed of workers (N = 269) and includes information about their

social networks. Research findings from this study suggest that (1) political credentials

are not a prerequisite for reaching highly remunerated jobs (on the contrary, according

to my results, Party members are less frequently found in highly remunerative positions

than non-members) and (2) Cubans commonly turn to personal ties, especially if they

are strong, in order to successfully complete a job search. Both results are consistent

with research findings from transitional economies at a comparable kind of market

penetration and with first findings from a social mobility study carried out by the Cuban

Centro de Investigaciones Psicológicas y Sociológicas (CIPS 2009).

Keywords: Cuba, social mobility, social inequality, Communist Party, social networks,

transitional economies

In the 1990s, the collapse of the USSR and the consequent dissolution of the

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) trading bloc contrib-

uted to the sudden shrinkage of Cuba’s international trade (both in volume and

in value terms), and thus Cuban economy itself. The crisis, exacerbated by the

US government’s blockade and the internal inefficiency of centralised Cuban

economic system, hit rock bottom in 1993 and ended up damaging the social

conditions of the population. The figures of the crisis are eloquent. During the

PARTY MEMBERSHIP, SOCIAL TIES AND UPWARD MOBILITY IN CUBA 29

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first 4 years following 1989, there was a contraction of the GDP of about 35 per

cent (Mesa-Lago 2007: 1), a 70 per cent decrease of imported foodstuffs, a 79.6

per cent contraction of exports (González-Corzo 2007: 316), a 39 per cent

decrease in private spending and the extinction of the state-run parallel market

in which Cuban workers could buy non-rationed goods at subsidised prices

(mainly, food and industrial products; Togores and García 2004: 247). The

Cuban government maintained the workers’ nominal salaries, but nevertheless

the purchasing power of wages decreased significantly. The rapid deterioration

of social conditions prompted the government to implement a set of market-

oriented reforms. From 1993 to the early 2000s, the Cuban government wel-

comed foreign direct investment, prioritised the reconstruction of the

international tourism sector and the development of telecommunications ser-

vices and mining, for example, nickel (Domínguez 2004: 31; Pérez-Villanueva

2004). To this end, it enforced policies aimed at attracting foreign direct invest-

ment. At the same time, the Cuban government legalised new forms of self-

employment in order to boost production and incorporate a part of the growing

informal economy into the formal economy (Ritter and Henken 2014: 80).

Thus, as a result of the crisis and reforms, Cuban socio-economic structures

have changed. Services and primary sectors have grown, while the secondary

sectors have decayed (Espina-Prieto and Togores-González 2012), but above all

new, so-called ‘emerging sectors’ have appeared. In the literature on Cuba, the

term ‘emerging sectors’ is used to refer to that part of the Cuban economy that

distinguishes it from the so-called traditional sectors for being ‘composed of jobs

linked to foreign currency gains and remunerative benefits’1 (Barbería 2008: 21).

Emerging sectors are mainly composed of mixed and Cuban companies which

developed in relation to the tourism industry and/or the domestic markets for

goods in hard currency; some firms also emerged in the export of high value-

added products (e.g., the pharmaceutical industry). The common aspect of

enterprises belonging to this emerging sector is that they sell their output in hard

currency (either to other firms, to the population, or abroad) and they purchase

their material inputs (imported or domestically produced) or borrow funds from

banks also in hard currency; only the wages are paid in Cuban pesos (with some

bonuses in convertible currency). In this regard, it is useful to highlight that

mixed enterprises cannot directly hire and pay their own Cuban workers, but

they must contract Cuban workers through state employment agencies.2

Under these circumstances, income inequality started to grow (Ranis and

Kosak, 2004; Mesa-Lago 2004) and a process of social re-stratification occurred

(Espina-Prieto 2004). Studies on inequality carried out in Cuba show that in the

Cuban labour market, the emerging sectors offer more highly remunerated jobs

(Espina-Prieto 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010; Espina-Prieto and Togores-González