Population Ageing in Cuba: Policy Options from a Global Perspective

Many countries are coping with the realization that population ageing demands long-term policies to accommodate rising elderly costs. While attention is rightly focused on rising pension and health care costs, interest is also being directed to potential means whereby some of these expenditures could be curtailed. In countries where population ageing is just getting underway as fertility declines, policymakers have more breathing room. Savings to be realized from lower educational and other services required by the young, for example, could be reallocated to train a more productive labor force, current surpluses saved and invested to cover future elderly safety net expenditures, or consumed by the currently old. This so-called “demographic dividend,” however, is not available to countries like Cuba which already have low fertility, often below replacement level. For these countries, the ageing issue has immediate policy relevance.