Catholic World News News Feature

CUBAN GOVERNMENT CONCERNED BY LOW BIRTH RATE February 07, 1996

HAVANA, Cuba (CWN) - Miguel Sosa Martin, Cuban Secretary for the Family said recently that the dramatic decrease of the birth rate in Cuba "is becoming one of the biggest challenges for our near future."

In a statement to the official daily newspaper Granma, Sosa Martin revealed that the current Cuban birth rate is 0.72 child per woman and that "there are no signs that this will change in the short run."

Cuba experienced a baby boom in the sixties, but "since 1978 Cuban women are not giving birth to enough females to replace them in their reproductive function," said the official.

According to Granma, the increasing poverty of the nation is just one among other causes for the "birth crisis." "The need for women to work full time, birth control methods, and abortion are the most frequent reasons" for the problem, the official daily said.

In Cuba, the only Latin American country in which abortion is free and legal, six of every ten pregnant women had abortions in 1994. According to Cuban demographer Alfonso Farnos, Cuba needs a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman, "otherwise, we will face the problem of an aging society in few years." At present, 10% of the Cuban population is above 60 years old, while in the year 2020, this group will become 28.9% of the population.