The main demographic trends in Santiago de Cuba are not far from or different from those of the rest of the island, as inferred from a field study carried out by research and academic institutions in the second most populated city in the country.
“Aging of the population, low fertility (high adolescent fertility) and high emigration rates, so the migratory balance becomes negative”… These are some characteristics of these population dynamics, as detailed to the local newspaper Sierra Maestra the M.Sc. Rodolfo Hernández Despaigne, coordinator of the Provincial Demographic Observatory.
“As for the behavior of mortality rates, there is a tendency to increase. On the other hand, there is a decrease in the rates of economic activity (especially in terms of paid work activity for women) with losses of qualified force,” she added.
According to Hernández Despaigne, Cuba is notable for an increase in the migration of women at young and fertile ages, a decrease in fertility rates and changes in the age structures of the population with an increase in those over 60 years of age. which represents demographic aging.
Julio Macías Montoya, head of the Department of Demography, Census and Population Survey in the provincial direction of the National Office of Statistics and Information, declared, when handling figures for the first half of the years 2023 and 2022, that there is a negative growth in population “with incalculable short-term consequences.”
The migratory phenomenon, present in various magnitudes, extends throughout Cuba. A research project on this matter from the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Sociology of the Universidad de Oriente has put the effects of the problem under the magnifying glass, with a multidisciplinary perspective.
The field work was carried out in five schools and included different age groups, selected for the representative sample.
According to Dr. Raida Margarita Dusu Contreras, head of the Department and who leads the research, the effects of migration were identified “from different perspectives, since it not only has to do with the absence of family members, but with effects on the dynamics and structure of the family and how, from that absence, roles begin to change.”
“The functioning and life cycle within the basic cell of Cuban society are being altered,” said Dr. Dusu Contreras, recounting how young people are assuming the role of providers over their parents, which leads to capture “economic power and power, in general.”
At the University, for example, “this impact is observed in the youth segment, which is the main migrant group, which modifies life projects.”
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Likewise, the expert pointed out that this affects a lack of motivation for studies and “in not negligible numbers of students” who argue for their imminent departure from the country so as not to continue in the classrooms.
Another fact that reveals how far the problem has penetrated is that “in the children’s group, when the psychological dynamics of the five wishes were applied, the center of their responses was ‘leave the country’.”
Some of the problems identified in the sector of adolescents and young people in training and construction of projects is that they visualize it in another place, which “affects the stages of determining who they are (identity confusion) and where they see themselves, which It marks how to face life in the present to determine the future,” said Dr. Dusu Contreras.
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In parallel, the study showed that an unsatisfied immigration project can bring with it “frustrations and conflicts with psychopathological repercussions.”
In that sense, he indicated that this brings with it depression, already observable in children and their families, in addition to anxiety and fights with people who remain in Cuba or with those who have already left.
“This is because sometimes expectations are not met in the expected time,” adds the research.
If frustrating scenarios occur, then a defense mechanism known as fantasy or dreaming of a reality that one does not have takes precedence; The person creates that world when it is not yet tangible.
“Fantasy makes it impossible to realistically assume the present; the career and the job are abandoned to wait for that realization,” noted the conclusions of the study.
According to this mental state, the dreamed reality is idealized or positively polarized and physical and emotional well-being is risked to obtain it in any way, the research considerations added.
“The problem of emigration causes substantive changes and also transversalizes the institutional level,” considered, for its part, the report from the Sierra Maestra newspaper.
“Preserving to the extent possible the well-being and health of the population and society is an essential objective, otherwise the consequences and solutions could be more difficult,” said the provincial newspaper of Santiago de Cuba.
