HAVANA, June 4 (NNN-ACN) — With 22.3 % of the population aged 60 and over at the end of 2022, and a projection that by 2050 this percentage figure will reach 35.9%, aging in Cuba is the main challenge in the demographic field.
As reported today by Cubadebate, this is what the National Statistics and Information Office ( ONEI by its Spanish acronym) assures in its report “The Aging of the Population. Cuba and its territories, May 2023 edition”, which indicates that at the end of 2022, the population aged 60 and over in the country increased by 79,976 people more than in the same period of 2021, and this represents an average annual growth rate of 33.3%.
Currently, the number of people aged 60 and over in Cuba amounts to 2,478,087, being Villa Clara(central Cuba) the province with more people in this age range: 25.3% of its population.
Simultaneously with the increase in the population aged 60 and over, the report indicates, the country has experienced a reduction in the number of children under 15 years of age, as a result of fertility below replacement level (less than one daughter per woman) since 1978, 44 years ago.
ONEI specialists recently pointed out to the press that Cuba’s population dynamics is also marked by other features such as the decrease of the population in absolute numbers, the decrease of people of working age and of the total number of women of reproductive age.
At the end of March 2023, Cuba’s preliminary population is 11,082,964, and the trend is downward due to low fertility, the negative balance between birth and death rates and the external migratory balance, according to Cubadebate.
During the past year, there were 95,403 births and 120,098 deaths, which confirms the trend of population decrease and places the negative growth rate at -2.1 per 1,000 inhabitants.
The Total Fertility Rate (children per woman), according to the information, is 1.14, which makes Cuba the nation with the lowest fertility rate in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The director of the Center for Population and Development Studies of ONEI, Diego Enrique Gonzalez, said that taking into account the statistical variables, for years some alternative scenarios have been elaborated and in none of them the country could reach 12 million inhabitants. — NNN-ACN
