CHAPTER 4

POPULATION

Cuba, with an estimated population of about 8.4 million early in 1970 was densely populated but, because of the high proportion of arable land, was not overcrowded. The country was highly urbanized, however, and because of concern over difficulties arising from this circumstance, attempts were being made in the 1960s to stem migration to the cities. The settlement pattern was highly irregular. Certain peninsulas and mountainous areas were thinly populated and desolate, whereas other regions with rich soils displayed high rural population densities. The population growth rate was about 2.1 percent a year in the mid-1960s.

Through much of its recorded history Cuba has depended upon immigration, rather than natural increase, for its population growth. Many immigrants came from Spain, for Cuba constituted a favorite destination, particularly after the Latin American continental independence movement of the early 1820s. Negroes were also brought in to replace the indigenous Indian population that had been virtually exterminated by the severity of early Spanish colonial policies. Immigration and population growth fell off at the end of the nineteenth century because of Cuba's own independence movement but picked up again after 1900, when the growing sugar industry stimulated new immigration. In the 1930s immigration declined significantly and has not since regained any influence on population growth. The birth rate, which increased markedly after World War II, together with the decreasing death rate, have been the primary elements of population growth. The emigration of one-half million Cuban citizens between 1959 and 1969, however, held down what would otherwise be a somewhat higher growth rate.

From the early days of the colony until the end of the nineteenth century, most of the population was concentrated in the area of the western provinces, particularly around Havana. The expansion of the sugar industry after 1900 precipitated a great migration to the east where new farmlands were opened up and sugar mills built. In fact, Oriente and Camagüey were still the fastest growing provinces between 1953 and 1968.

Migration to the cities has probably been the most notable aspect of population movement, despite the agricultural base of the economy. Varying estimates placed the urban population between 53

percent and 65 percent of total population in 1968. Cities of over 25,000 population that are political, economic, and cultural centers have experienced the greatest growth. More people have been attracted to them than could be gainfully employed, and their departure from the rural areas has created a labor shortage there. The government in the 1960s had built some new towns in rural areas to provide agricultural workers with urban conveniences and thus encourage them to remain.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

According to official estimates the population of Cuba was about 8,073,700 in 1968 (see table 1). The last official census was taken in 1953, and the population then was 5,829,029. In 1968 the population density was about 183 persons per square mile. Because of the high percentage of arable land, however, the country was not overcrowded and could support a considerably larger population, provided the economy could supply needed jobs.

The 1953 census provides the most recent data on the ethnic origins of the people. It estimated that 72.8 percent of the population was white, 12.4 percent Negro, 14.5 percent mulatto, and 0.3 percent Asiatic. Some experts, however, have felt that this breakdown vastly oversimplified the racial complexity of the nation and overestimated the proportion of the white population (see ch. 5, Ethnic Groups and Languages).

Because the country's population growth depended for so long on immigration, foreigners have, in the past, made up a significant portion of the island's inhabitants. About 12 percent of the population fell into this category in 1919, compared with only 4 percent in 1953. Although figures are not available this proportion has probably not changed much since the Revolution. The national origins of resident foreigners, at least of those newly arrived, have probably shifted somewhat from the Western Hemisphere and western European countries to those of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Cuba is one of the nations in the world with more men than women. This is so, in part, because of the preponderance of men over women among immigrants. Because heavy immigration was a phenomenon of the early decades of the twentieth century and did not continue after about 1930, the balance is gradually being restored. In 1953, 51.2 percent of the population was male, compared with an estimated 50.9 percent in 1965. In 1965 females outnumbered males in the thirty to fifty-year age bracket, but males outnumbered females in all other brackets. The preponderance of males over females was particularly striking among people between the ages of fifty-five and seventy, a fact that is consistent

*This eighty-seven year annual average is misleading; as the average annual growth rate was particularly high between 1792 and 1817 (over 3 percent per year).

Source: Adapted from Levi Marrero y Artilies, Geografía de Cuba, New York, 1966, pp. 142-163.

with the early predominance of immigrant males, who would have reached these ages in the mid-1960s. For this same reason the average age of men was somewhat higher than that of women. The median age of women-between twenty-one and twenty-two-was, however, higher than the median ages of men (between twenty and twenty-one).

The average age of the population has gradually increased since 1899 as the birth and death rates have been reduced. Since World War II, however, the birth rate has shown a marked resurgence, and the advancing age of the population has probably been slowed somewhat (see ch. 8, Living Conditions). About 46.5 percent of the population was under twenty years of age in 1965.

POPULATION GROWTH

Immigration and Natural Increase

The population has grown steadily since the discovery of the island except during the period between 1887 and 1898, when the fight for independence and the consequent disease, starvation, and emigration actually reduced it by about 0.3 percent yearly (see table 2). Much of the increase from the establishment of the colony until about 1930 was the result of the constant stream of immigrants, who were either Europeans in search of new opportunities or Negroes and Chinese imported to meet the demand for labor in the cane fields. About 1 million African slaves were brought to the island during the 300 years of slavery, which ended in the late 1880s. Most of these arrived after 1774 when the sugar industry

began to expand rapidly. In 1840 the Negro population outnumbered the white, but the government took steps to encourage white immigration and, by 1861, 54 percent of the population was white. When the slave trade came to an end, the ever-increasing demand for labor was met by the recruitment of Chinese from the Philippines, Indians from Mexico, and later by the seasonal immigration of Haitian and Jamaican Negroes.

After the Spanish-American War the economy, particularly the sugar industry, expanded rapidly, requiring a much larger labor force than the existing population afforded. The rate of population increase leaped to an alltime high, averaging about 3.4 percent per year between 1899 and 1907. New immigration and a decreased death rate, the result of improvements in sanitary conditions, combined to produce this increase (see ch. 8, Living Conditions; ch. 3, Historical Setting). This high growth pattern continued until the early 1930s largely because of conditions in Europe during and after World War I, which encouraged emigration, and to the Cuban sugar boom. Most of the immigrants came from Spain, but there were also people from Great Britain, the United States, eastern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, and China.

The world depression reduced the demand for labor, however, and in 1933 the Cuban government restricted the employment of foreigners on the island (see ch. 3, Historical Setting). The population growth rate declined to a low of about 1.5 percent in the mid-1930s when many people, particularly the foreign born, emigrated because of poor economic circumstances. The only significant immigration after this time was that of European Jews, about half of them German, who fled persecution in their homelands; most of them, however, emigrated again after World War II.

Between 1940 and 1950 the population growth rate increased steadily mainly because of a substantial increase in the birth rate and a declining death rate. After 1950 the growth rate leveled off at about 2.2 percent per year, which figure represents the estimated average annual rate of population increase between 1953 and 1968; yearly fluctuations have been slight. After 1952, increasing numbers of Cubans emigrated, mostly to the United States and Venezuela. This emigration was insignificant, however, compared to the 1959-69 period-after the Revolution-when 500,000 Cubans emigrated. This emigration has had an impact on population growth; but the birth rate, which official figures indicate has risen somewhat in the 1960s, combined with a relatively unchanging death rate has served to mask its effect. The birth rate rose from 30.5 in 1959 to 34.6 live births per 1,000 population in 1965, whereas the death rate declined from 6.6 in 1959 to 6.5 deaths per 1,000 population in 1965. These figures in themselves are of limited usefulness because infants dying within twenty-four hours of birth have been