A study conducted by Cuban economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos revealed that Cuba is experiencing a “demographic emptying,” resulting in 24 percent of its population leaving the country in the past four years, the Spanish news agency EFE reported on Tuesday.
EFE, after reviewing an advanced copy of the study, reported that, based on official data and Albizu-Campos’ own estimates, there are 8,025,624 Cubans left living the country — 1.7 million fewer than the 9,748,532 reported by the communist Castro regime in February.
Albizu-Campos warned that such an abrupt population reduction has only been observed in “contexts of armed conflict” and asked whether Cuba’s situation should be classified as “a demographic crisis or a systemic crisis.”
The demographer warned that Cuba’s “demographic emptying” is due to a “quasi-permanent polycrisis” and stressed that this dynamic is acting as “the canary in the coalmine” indicator of other variables.
Cuba has been pushed to the brink of complete ruin by more than six decades of communism under the Castro dynasty, leading to a severe humanitarian crisis that has dramatically worsened since 2021. The collapse of Cuba’s infrastructure, rampant hunger, extreme poverty, and other inhumane conditions have pushed a growing number of Cubans to flee in recent years in what is now widely described as the worst migrant crisis in the country’s history, larger than the 1980 Mariel exodus and 1994’s rafter crisis.
EFE reported that, according to Albizu-Campo’s estimates, 545,011 Cubans left their country in 2024, a much higher number than the 248,165 reported by the Castro regime. Albizu-Campos criticized the Cuban regime’s numbers for only including U.S.-bound migrants, ignoring Cubans that have left for other countries.
In a previous study published in May 2024, Albizu-Campos warned that Cuba lost 18 percent of its population between 2022 and 2023 and estimated the country’s remaining population at 8.62 million at the time. In his latest study, Albizu-Campo questioned the Castro regime’s official population figures and explained that they do not accurately reflect the demographic reality of Cuba and underestimate the actual existing population and the negative effect of migration.
Cuba’s population collapse is also marked by declining birthrates and an increased elderly population. The regime documented the lowest number of births in Cuba in the past six decades at some 71,000 in 2024. In February, deputy chief of Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga claimed during a meeting of Cuban demographic officials that “more than a quarter” of Cuba’s remaining inhabitants are 60 years old or older.
The Castro regime has not conducted an official census in Cuba since 2012. At the time, the communist officials estimated Cuba’s population at 11.16 million — 10,418 fewer than the number recorded a decade prior in 2002, but with its population aging at an “accelerated rate.”
The next census was originally scheduled to take place sometime in 2022. According to Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, the census was postponed first by the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, then by the “existing difficulties” in the country to sometime in 2025. Officials from Cuba’s ONEI statistics office claimed in early March that preparations for the yet-to-be-scheduled census are taking place.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here
