Resumen

VEGA HERNANDEZ, Maylen  y  VEGA HERNANDEZ, Mayrim. Trends in fecundity in Cuba, main causes and consequences. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2014, vol.40, n.2, pp. 187-197. ISSN 0864-3466.

Introduction: the reduction of fecundity in Cuba is a factor affecting the population growth and implies that the country has not reached population replacement levels for over 30 years. Objective: to describe the decline in fecundity and to analyze some of its causes and main consequences. Methods: consulting the demographic yearbooks of Cuba of the last three years and other indispensable documents. For creating the illustrative graphs, ratio indexes, percentages and rates were used. Results: from 1965 through 2006 when the highest and the lowest number of births occurred in the revolutionary history of Cuba, respectively, there was a reduction of 156 288 births. The causes were found in changes of the traditional socio-cultural and economic patterns, namely, the incorporation of the women to all the life spheres and the influence of the difficult economic situation over the Cuban families for several decades. The main consequence was population aging and gradual decrease of the size of younger population groups. Conclusions: taking into account the multicausal nature and the possible time of change, the decline in fecundity should behave at short and medium term in a way similar to that of the last five years. This situation as well as the aging of the Cuban population requires changes in the work of those bodies that may help to face these realities.

Palabras clave : fecundity; population aging; birth rate.

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