The Census to be passed by 2025
Published: Oct 31, 2023 Reading time: 3 minutes
The National Office of Statistics and Information of Cuba said that “The public census of the population would be a statistical investigation that a country has ever done.”
As it did before, the island would have completed a new census in September of 2022. According to the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, around 40,000 people were ready to take to the streets to do their duty to count the population.
However after much preparation the census was postponed, due to the economic and societal impacts of COVID-19. This caused much debate among the population that this was also because the amount of people who were dying from the virus was way higher than the government was reporting.
That could have been one of the reasons, but the national census not only counted deaths, but also homelessness, migration, and housing numbers.
The official reason given by authorities was a fuel shortage, which is vital to Cuba’s national transport and energy system, and powers its economy.
However, independent sources found another motive behind the census delay that didn’t coincide with what the government was saying: Thousands of young census takers had left the country before the census could start. Training new people as census takers costs a lot of money and time, something that the regime in Havana appeared not to have.
Keep in mind that the departure from Cuba is permanent, and there is no way to calculate the dozens of thousands of people who were counted in the last census who are still living on the island.
After the last census in 2012, it took the official press over a year and a half to release it to the public, even though it only took nine days to conduct.
There was no explanation for why there was such a delay in the census. Conservative guesses were that Cuba’s population had decreased by more than 10 million habitants since the last census.
Even without the 2022 census, based on data from the National Statistics and Information Office, the population has continued to decrease. Deaths were more than 25,000 above births last year. A state entity found that the actual population of Cuba is around 11,089,964 inhabitants. Using basic math from the 2012 census, it can be seen that the population decreased by around 85,000.
The data, although alarming, is not totally accurate or trustworthy. This is because in only a year, hundreds of Cubans have left the country for the US. Several others have also opted to settle in other countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
In Cuba, a total of 17 Population Censuses have been carried out. The first 8 during the colonial days, 5 during the republican government, and 4 under the Castro regime. Hopefully, the 5th one won’t take place under the communist regime within two years. Anything can happen to a country in 24 months.
Even though the authorities don’t want to admit it, the problems that Cuba and its people suffer are of a political nature. Political segregation is practiced constantly and legally. This is allowed to happen under article 5 of the Constitution, which establishes the Communist party as the superior force of the state and its society. Members of the Communist Party only make up 5-7% of the population.
As history has shown countless times, nations are successful when their citizens, regardless of their political ideology, can help contribute to the welfare of society.
