Letter from the Caribbean

Mass emigration, plummeting birth rates, rising mortality and rapid population aging: Demographic indicators are alarming in Cuba. After years of exodus by the working population fleeing economic stagnation and deteriorating living conditions, the Caribbean nation's population has fallen below the 10 million mark, a threshold it surpassed in the early 1980s.

As of December 31, 2024, the largest island in the Antilles archipelago had 9,748,532 residents. This represents a decrease of 307,000 in 12 months, according to preliminary statistics presented on February 21 by Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, the deputy director of the National Office of Statistics and Information (the ONEI), during a meeting with regime dignitaries. Compared to the peak of 11.2 million inhabitants reached in 2012 – the year of the last census – Cuba has lost 13% of its population.

"A quarter of the island's population is aged 60 and over, and it is the only demographic category that has grown in recent years," Alfonso Fraga emphasized. To make matters worse, the ONEI recorded only 71,000 births in 2024 – a record low since the 1959 revolution – compared to 90,000 in 2023. The number of deaths, however, was "rising," added the statistical office: the island had already registered 129,000 deaths in 2023.

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