According to data from ONEI, as of December 31, 2023, 1,249,733 Cubans were outside the country
14ymedio, Madrid, July 19, 2024 — The Cuban Government acknowledged this Friday that the country has fewer than 10 million inhabitants and that the population continues to decrease. The latest data recorded by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (ONEI), as presented in the session that took place in the National Assembly after the draft Migration Law was presented, are from 2023 and slightly exceed that figure: 10,055,968.
However, the deputy head of the organization, Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, explained to Parliament that “given the demographic dynamics recorded in the first months of 2024, the contraction of the number of births and the continuity of the movement of people abroad since the last months of 2023, the current population of Cuba is fewer than 10 million inhabitants and will continue to decrease.”
Similarly, the official admitted the migratory exodus, saying that “in the last three years, the mobility of the Cuban population abroad has intensified, with prolonged stays outside.”
The latter, Alfonso Fraga continued, is not reflected in the calculation of the resident population, “since an important part of that population is not defined as migrant.” According to current legislation, the “migrant” definition comes after two years of permanence abroad are completed. This definition was suspended and has been successively extended since 2020, due to the Covid pandemic.
“In the last three years, the mobility of the Cuban population abroad has intensified, with prolonged stays outside”
Therefore, ONEI will modify the current calculation methodology and introduce the concept of “population with effective residence”: someone who “resides permanently, accumulated 180 days or more of residence during the last 365 days and has not died.” Likewise, it will distinguish between “immigrant,” someone who accumulates 180 days or more of residency in the country, and “emigrant,” someone who does not reach that number of days in Cuban territory.
According to data from the organization itself, as of December 31, 2023, 1,249,733 people were outside the country. Alfonso Fraga stated that “about 75% of them should be discounted from the population, for not having effective residence in the country in the period 2021-2023.”
Other data also recognized the galloping aging of the population. The bleeding caused by migration is more striking in the active population group. Cubans between the ages of 15 and 59 decreased by more than 800,000, making up 59.5%. Alfonso Fraga indicated that the Island “will present an aging economy, characterized by the high cost for society and family in the assistance to and care for the growing older adult population. The cost of social programs will increase with the necessary security and social assistance and the lower basis for the renewal of the labor resources of the country.”
A distinction will be made between “immigrant,” someone who spends 180 days or more in the country, and “emigrant,” someone who doesn’t spend that number of days in Cuban territory
The number of births will also decrease, he admitted, and he estimates that in 2024, it will be below 80,000, the lowest figure since 1959. For “more information” about the “effective population,” Alfonso Fraga asked for a census, something that has not been done since 2012.
According to an independent study carried out by the renowned Cuban economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, made public ten days ago by the Spanish agency EFE, the population of the Island is at 8.62 million people. The calculation is based on the number of Cubans, 738,680, who arrived in the United States between October 2021 and April 2024. Migration is the main cause of the 18% decrease in Cuba’s population between 2022 and 2023.
The recent UN demographic perspectives report also draws a bleak picture for Cuba: in 2012, when it had 11,303,175 inhabitants, the peak of population was reached, but when the 21st century ends, there will be 50% fewer inhabitants, only 5,577,280.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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