The Population Dynamic Challenge to Cuban Socialism

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.6.1.0025
• Published date: 01 April 2014
• Date: 01 April 2014
• Pages: 25-40
• Author: Judith Hernández,Guillermo Foladori
• Subject Matter: Cuba,international migration,population dynamics,population ageing,female migration

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THE POPULATION DYNAMIC CHALLENGE TO

CUBAN SOCIALISM

Judith Hernández and Guillermo Foladori

Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, México

Abstract

In recent years, Cuba’s population dynamics has had a signif‌icant change. From 2006 on,

and for the f‌irst time, the rate of population growth went negative. The aim of this article

is to analyse this inf‌lection. In addition to all the economic and social problems that it

is already going through, Cuba will face the population issue, and will have to elaborate

appropriate policies to reverse the present trend. This article analyses the population

dynamics in Cuba through its main indicators and indexes and highlights the key role

that international migration plays. In this article, to the forces that put the country in the

highest stages of demographic transition, the economic expulsion of the youth is added.

The economic perspectives of an ageing country that is scarcely industrialised and without

workforce replacement are uncertain.

Keywords: Cuba, international migration, population dynamics, population ageing, female

migration

1. The Demographic Transition in Cuba

The theory of Demographic Transition explains those demographic changes

that are the result of economic development. According to this theory, there are

different stages to demographic transition, measured fundamentally – although

in no way exclusively – by birth and morbidity rates.

The Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (Centro Latino

Americano de Demograf‌ia (CELADE) 1992) created a model adjusted to the

population conditions of Latin America retaken by Chackiel (2004). The model

took into account the population growth based on birth and morbidity rates,

the age structure and the relation of dependency between those who are not

working and the economically active population (EAP). In this study, Cuba was

grouped with Argentina, Chile and Uruguay among those countries experiencing

an advanced phase of increased demographic transition.

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26 ACADEMIC ARTICLE  JUDITH HERNÁNDEZ AND GUILLERMO FOLADORI

I J  C S 6.1 S 2014

Several years ago, Cuba experienced a population drop, caused by its

demographic regime1 and emigration. The Annual Natural Growth Rate (ANGR)

has fallen signif‌icantly. While in 1960, it was 25 per 1,000 which corresponded

to a developing country with a considerable youth population and high birth

rates, in 2006, the rate was less than 3 per 1,000, which is comparable to a

developed country with an aged population. In less than two generations, demo-

graphically speaking, Cuba has gone from an underdeveloped country with a

young population to a developed country with an old population.

Cuba has experienced an early and total demographic transition similar to

that of developed countries. However, unlike the developed countries, Cuba has

not arrived at that point as a result of industrialisation. The Cuban development

model, oriented toward satisfying needs rather than the market, has undergone

– in demographic terms – a similar transition to that of advanced capitalist

countries, but via a different path. This in itself poses a challenge to development:

Can a country sustain an increasingly aged population without a simultaneous

advance in labour productivity that counterbalances the increasing weight of a

part of the inactive population on the shoulders of the active workforce?

2. The Population Dynamic in Cuba

The total population of Cuba in 1990 was a little more than 10 million

inhabitants (10,662,148). Ten years later, in 2010, it barely passed 11 million

(11,241,161), an increase of 5.4 per cent, which is considered a slow rate of

growth. Since 2004, it has experienced a deep stagnation in the population with

periods of absolute decline in the periods 2006–2008 and 2010. In 2009, the

population grew by 652 compared to 2008, and 2011 reported an increase of

6,764. However, while the population appears to be in recovery, preliminary

data from the Population and Housing Census (PHC) (2012) (ONE 2012) shows

a drastic decrease of the population by 83,991 according to the calculation of

the statistical system, the population was 11,132,934 in total.

To analyse the performance of a population to the point of departure is always

the rate of natural growth (ANGR). Figure 1 shows the behaviour of this rate.

The f‌irst thing to notice is the tendency of the vertical bars, which show the

evolution of the ANGR. In 1991, for the f‌irst time, the ANGR fell to 9.5 persons

per 1,000 inhabitants. Note that, the recoveries of 2008, 2009 and 2011 (3.2,

3.8, 4.1 per thousand inhabitants) do not mean that the trend of growth is

recovering, but that there is low growth with oscillatory movements.

1. ‘Demographic regime’ is understood as the population dynamic of a particular phase in the

demographic transition.

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