Socialism is notorious for destroying resources and causing shortages of things such as food, medicine, and fuel, and in communist Cuba, socialism is also causing a shortage of human resources.
Via Diario de Cuba (my translation):
Cuba’s population aging rapidly and won’t reach 12 million
The Cuban population is aging rapidly and both the number of people of working age and women of reproductive age are decreasing, according to officials from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).
In a press conference, Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, the deputy head of ONEI, stated that according to an annual study, 95,403 births were recorded in 2022, compared to 99,096 in the previous year. Furthermore, 120,098 deaths were reported, 47,547 fewer than in 2021. This information was published by the state-run Cuban News Agency.
Life expectancy in Cuba is around 77 years, and the aging rate accounts for 22.3% of the total population. Since 1977, the level of population replacement has not been obtained, Alfonso Fraga added. However, back in February, he stated that there was no need to “dramatize” the country’s demographic situation.
“We have to work with that and develop the country with that. Not dramatize or beat ourselves up over it,” he said to the AP agency, even though in 2022 the number of deaths in Cuba exceeded the number of births, just like in 2021.
In this instance, the vice president of ONEI stated the preliminary population of Cuba as of the end of March 2023 is 11,082,964, a figure slightly lower than the 11,089,500 Cuban residents announced by the official himself in February.
However, experts believe that in reality, Cuba has a little over ten million inhabitants this year, as the official count presented in February by Alfonso Fraga did not include the 334,000 Cubans that U.S. authorities found at their southern border between October 2021 and December last year. Neither does it include the thousands who, without official estimates, are estimated to have immigrated to other European and Latin American countries.
“I estimate the current resident population of the island to be around ten and a half million,” said historian, essayist, and collaborator at La Joven Cuba, Mario Valdés Navia, three months ago in an interview with an American agency.
If the official figures are not current, it is because “Cuban legislation establishes a two-year period for those who leave (the country) to stop being counted. It creates statistical chaos,” he pointed out.
Continue reading (in Spanish) HERE.
Oh, the powers that be are definitely not going to beat themselves up over this, Basically, NOTHING matters to them except staying in power, regardless of lip service to the contrary.