Cuba’s Future Economic Crisis: the Ageing Population and the Social Safety Net

In this paper I examine the impact demographic trends are having on the evolution of Cuba’s population age structure. The analysis is conducted within a comparative perspective and focuses on the most significant demographic development of the late twentieth century and the first half of the twenty-first, the ageing of the world’s population. The analyses suggests that Cuba will confront serious difficulties in years to come as a result of these demographic trends. Their impact will be so profound and pervasive as to interfere with the country’s prospects for long-term economic development, even after Cuba discards its current economic system and becomes fully integrated into the international economy.