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FROM
CUBA
The aging of the Cuban population: Elderly
to exceed children by 2010
HAVANA, December 17 (www.cubanet.org)
- Cuba's elderly will account for 18% of
the total of less than 12 million by 2010,
said a study from the Demographic Studies
Center at the University of Havana, exceeding
children for the first time in history.
The present level of elderly is 14%, surpassed,
in Latin America, only by Uruguay with 16%.
The study, by Dr. Otilia Z. Barros, is
called "Development and Demographic
Prospects in Cuba. Toward Sustainable Growth"
and was published this year.
The study points to a slowing down of population
growth after rapid growth in the second
half of the 20th Century. By 2015, the study
predicts, population could actually start
decreasing. Since 1978, Cubans have not
been producing one daughter for every woman.
Dr. Barros attributes the trends to "first,
a decrease in the birth rate, from 18 births
per 1000 in 1988, to 13.6 per 1000 in 1998;
an increase in life expectancy, and the
effect of migrations, in which mostly the
younger people leave.
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