Caribbean letter
Massive emigration, collapse of the birth rate and increase in mortality, rapid aging of the population … Demographic lights are red in Cuba. After several years of exodus of the living forces, fleeing the economic slump and the deterioration of living conditions, the population of the Caribbean country fell below 10 million inhabitants, a threshold which it had exceeded in the early 1980s.
As of December 31, 2024, the largest island in the Antilles archipelago had 9,748,532 residents, 307,000 less in twelve months, according to preliminary statistics presented on February 21 by Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, the deputy director of the National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI), during a meeting of dignitaries of the regime. Compared to the peak of 11.2 million inhabitants, reached in 2012 – the year of the last census to date -, Cuba therefore lost 13 % of its population.
“A quarter of the island’s population is 60 and over, and it is the only category of population that has believed in recent years”underlined Mr. Alfonso Fraga. To make sure, the Onei only listed 71,000 births in 2024 – the lowest level since the 1959 revolution -, against another 90,000 in 2023. The number of deaths was, he, “Raising”added the Statistical Office: the island had already recorded 129,000 deaths in 2023.
You have 76.83% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.