The deputy head of the National Office of Statistics and Information of Cuba (ONEI) called for not dramatizing the aging of the island’s population.
Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, director of the facility, conceded in an interview with AP that the drop in the number of births is “not a small problem” but also said that it is not a “flagellation”.
“We have to work with that and develop the country with it. Don’t dramatize or flog ourselves,” he said.
Fraga revealed that At the end of 2022, the official number of Cubans was 11,089,500preliminary data that does not take into account the more than 330,000 Cubans who entered the United States through its southern border between October 2021 and December 2022.
Last year, 95,402 people were born in Cuba and 129,049 diednumbers yet worse than in 2021, when there were 99,096 births and 167,000 deaths.
Contrary to the data offered by the deputy head of the state body, others Experts assume that Cuba actually has more than 10 million inhabitants.
According to Mario Valdés Navia, historian and collaborator of the portal La Joven Cuba, the current resident population must be in the 10 and a half million people.
Valdés Navia emphasized this Official figures are not up to date because “Cuban legislation gives a two-year deadline for those who go (abroad) to stop adding. It creates statistical chaos.”
“What is happening in Cuba is that another factor is operating more strongly: motherhood and child-rearing have become impossible for young families,” he added.
According to the specialist, one of the measures that the Cuban government should take is to reverse the situation Create incentives to bring back Cubans who have emigrated.
Between Causes of the decline in fertility are migration and persistent poverty.
Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, professor at the Center for the Study of Cuban Economy at the University of Havana, pointed out last December that if the current rates of births, deaths, poverty and emigration of the child-bearing age population continue, In 2030 the country would have almost 10 million inhabitants.
“In Cuba, up to three or four generations live together in one house, and food is also scarce. Therefore, the first question a young couple asks when they want to have a child is: ‘Where to put the child?’ once decided, ‘what am I going to give him to eat?'” the demographer pointed out.