(Havana) The Cuban population, currently 11 million, should continue to decline rapidly to reach 9 million by 2050, according to the National Statistics Office (Onei), which has set a record low population for 2022. birth rate for 60 years.
“The trend of demographic decline continues, a process that has accelerated” in recent years, said Friday at a press conference Diego Enrique Gonzalez, director of the Center for Population and Development Studies of the National Statistics Office (Onei).
According to the expert, “if current trends are not reversed, which seems unlikely”, the population of the island could decrease from 11 million inhabitants at present to less than 9 million in 2054.
At the end of 2022, the largest island in the Caribbean had 11,089,511 inhabitants.
However, this figure does not take into account the historic wave of emigration that has affected the island since the end of 2021, against the backdrop of a major economic crisis, under the combined effect of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, structural weaknesses and the reinforcement of the American embargo.
More than 300,000 Cubans emigrated to the United States in 2022, according to US authorities, or about 2.7% of the population. Others also emigrated to Latin America and Europe, but no official figures are available.
According to Cuban law, a Cuban can reside up to two years outside the island without losing residency. It therefore remains counted in the statistics during this period.
According to the director of Onei, Juan Carlos Alfonso, Cuba recorded in 2022 “95,403 births, the lowest figure for 60 years”, against “120,098 deaths”.
Cuba is “currently the country with the lowest fertility rate in Latin America and the Caribbean”, he added, making it one of the countries in the region with the highest proportion of elderly people (22 .3% of the population).