Cuba gets older: The island reports its lowest birth rate since the Revolution

A group of Cuban officials has confirmed what has been obvious on the streets of Cuba for some time: that the country has much fewer people than it did three years ago. Fewer births are being registered and only older adults are increasing as a demographic group. The latest official figures from the National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI) show that the latest exodus of Cubans has emptied the country out; that women are reluctant to have children in the midst of an endless economic crisis, and that young people are leaving while the elderly remain behind. Authorities have said that this population aging should not be “dramatized,” but researchers insist that it should not be underestimated either. In any case, they say that the problem is not aging per se, but the conditions in which Cubans are getting older.

The deputy head of ONEI, Juan Carlos Alfonso Faga, announced data that demographers have been discussing for months: that Cuba’s current population, which for years was just over 11 million, is now just over 9.7 million, similar to what it was 40 years ago. According to calculations up to December 2024, Cuba lost around 300,000 inhabitants last year. Some experts consider, however, that the current population is much smaller than what the official figures say. The economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos said last year that there were just 8.62 million Cubans living in the country.

Faga not only acknowledged the population decline that the authorities have sometimes attempted to brush over, but also discussed the decrease in the birth rate recorded last year, “the lowest figure in recent decades,” with a total of 71,000 births, 19,075 fewer than in 2023. This has been a sustained trend in the country over the last few years. In 2023, Cuba reported the figure of 90,300 births, 15,000 fewer than the 105,616 births in 2020.

Described by Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero himself as “complex,” with the trend at its most acute in the provinces of Villa Clara, Havana and Sancti Spiritus, the population dynamics have attracted the attention of researchers. Older adults are the only population group on the rise, with more than a quarter of the total population now aged 60 or over. Cuba is now one of the oldest populations in Latin America. While two years ago, 24.4% of Cubans were 60 or older, by 2030, 30% of the population is expected to fall into that bracket. On the other hand, the under-15 age group contracted by 6%, and the 15-59 age group by almost 12%.

Experts from the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana (Cedem) told Cuba’s official press that the only possible solution would be a higher fertility rate, but the truth is that the fertility rate has been below replacement levels since 1978, with fewer than two children per woman on average. The country also reports more deaths than births.

Exacerbating the situation is the latest migratory exodus, which experts say took place in 2021, and which also decimated the population. According to UN data, women have been the largest demographic emigrating in the latest Cuban stampede: around 133 women for every 100 men. Albizu-Campos told EL PAÍS that a pattern is emerging that he calls “the pattern of single grandparents with single children… Young parents tend to migrate alone, because they are going to enter complex migration corridors,” he says.

Certainly, the elderly are now dealing not only with the loneliness that comes from being separated from their families, but also with long lines to buy food, endless hours of blackouts, low pensions and the lack of decent state care.

Cuban sociologist Elaine Acosta González, director of the Cuido60 Observatory on Aging, Care and Rights, told EL PAÍS that the increase in the elderly in Cuba is nothing new. “Cuba has been leading the aging process for a long time and it is a situation unfolding in one of the country’s worst periods in terms of conditions such as economic resources and the adaptations of the programs to adequately sustain this demographic aging,” she said.

Cuban officials themselves have recognized that a country where the elderly accounts for a quarter of its population “is more complex to handle,” and that the fact that the working-age population is smaller directly affects the economy, which has already been battered and impoverished in recent years.

Dramatic conditions

Even so, Cuban officials have urged citizens to avoid dramatizing the ageing trend in Cuba and, instead, to see it as a “triumph of life over death.” And although it is undeniable that the increase in life expectancy is always an achievement, Acosta González insists that “underestimating its impact means that the phenomenon is not fully understood and, therefore, public policy measures that could help alleviate the situation are not in place.”

“I think the issue is not to dramatize it, nor to see aging as a problem in itself,” says Acosta González. “Growing old is good news, especially if it is done in good conditions and with dignity. However, in the case of Cuba, what is dramatic are the conditions in which this aging is taking place, the quality of life with which the elderly are reaching the age of 60 – that is the drama here, which they want to brush under the carpet or at least downplay.”

The researcher also states that the government has not shown itself to be efficient in the management of public policies to address the multiple needs of a growing aging population. She also says that the impact of the migratory crisis has been underestimated, “in terms of the proportion of elderly people living alone, whose children and grandchildren have emigrated and the lack of programs that can adequately assist them.”

“To downplay the impact is to downplay the systemic crisis that Cuban society is going through,” Acosta González adds. “Cuba’s scarce resources are not being prioritized properly to meet the growing needs of a population whose quality of life is getting worse every day.” Reversing this situation means giving over space to activities and actors in society at large who are trying to address the phenomenon. Acosta González calls it the “structural change of democratization of Cuban society.” Without it, “it is not possible to directly influence either the design of public policies or their implementation,” she says.

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