2024-07-19 04:42:15
A recent United Nations (UN) report projects a worrying demographic outlook for Cuba, with its population expected to decline to less than 6 million by 2100.
This alarming figure represents a significant decrease compared to the 11 million inhabitants currently residing on the island.
According to the study carried out by the entity, the average is less than 40 thousand after a peak of more than 260 thousand recorded between 1960 and 1970.
Of the population of less than six million inhabitants that Cuba would have by that year, almost 2.5 million people will be over 60 years old, so life expectancy would be over 85 years and the mortality rate would be 17 per 1 thousand inhabitants, with 95 thousand deaths per year, more than double the birth rate at that time.
Overall, the UN study, which is published every two years, projects that the world’s population will peak slightly earlier than in previous projections.
According to the publication made for 2022, the UN estimated that, in its medium scenario, the world population would peak in 2086, at 10.4 billion people. However, this year’s edition slightly brings forward this peak to 2084, with a population just under 10.3 billion people. In that sense, the study clarifies that these are projections, not predictions of changes in the future.
In its latest revision, the UN has lowered its estimates of future population in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but has raised its projections for Europe and North America.
The analysis takes into account the results of 1,910 national population censuses conducted between 1950 and 2023, as well as information from civil registration systems and 3,189 nationally representative sampling surveys.
Regarding Cuba, the perception may be more tragic, considering that they do not include data from a recent independent demographic study by Cuban economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos.
The EFE agency recently reported that Cuba’s current population would be 8.62 million people, given that it fell by 18 percent between 2022 and 2023.
Cuba has been experiencing a mass exodus since 2021, the main reasons being the economic crisis that the country has been going through for years, as well as political reasons, this being the main cause of the decrease in Cubans on the island.
Given the lack of official statistics on this matter, since the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) delayed the population census that was pending two years ago until 2025, this study aims to fill this gap by providing data that is not biased for political or ideological reasons.
Albizu-Campos said that the figures provided by ONEI are “fictitious.” The entity states that 11.11 million people lived in Cuba on December 31, 2021. The independent Cuban demographer corrected this data, taking as a reference the electoral rolls of 2013 and 2023, and estimated that, on that date, 10.48 million people lived on the Island.
READ ALSO: More than 106 thousand Cubans have benefited from humanitarian parole
Cubans Around the World Editorial Team