Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, May 31 2006 (IPS) – I was born on Friday the 13th, which didn t bring me bad luck, but just the contrary, says Antonia Díaz, bubbling with vitality and optimism. It is hard to believe that this Cuban teacher, who is studying psychology and heads an educational institution, is about to turn 84 on Jun. 13.
Her secret is simple: staying active. A primary school teacher who earned a doctorate in pedagogy in 1951, she retired in 1988, but continued to work as an adviser to the Ministry of Education.
In the daytime I keep moving. Now I m studying psychology; it helps me get to know myself better, Díaz told IPS, in her slow and deliberate voice.
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) statistics indicate that by 2025 Cuba will have the oldest population in the hemisphere, with 25.9 percent of the population over 60, followed by Barbados (25.4 percent), Trinidad and Tobago (20.5 percent), Uruguay (20 percent) and Chile (18.4 percent).
The ageing of the population is one of the greatest triumphs of the Cuban revolution, but at the same time one of its biggest challenges, Osvaldo Prieto, president of the Cuban geriatric association, told IPS.
For that reason, Cuba s socialist government began to implement a programme in the 1990s focused on providing comprehensive health and social security coverage that responds to the specific needs of the elderly.
According to official sources, there are now more than 14,000 grandparents groups (known as circulos de abuelos ) in Cuba, which are generally formed at the neighbourhood level, for recreation or day care purposes. There are also 170 retirement homes, as well as a system of home-based care, which serves 100,000 elderly who live alone.
Díaz belonged to one of the circulos for a time, but left because it did not live up to her expectations. People were always complaining about problems and shortcomings. My field is intellectual, explained the elderly woman, who since 2000 has been the assistant director of the Cátedra del Adulto Mayor of the city of Havana. This is my life s work, she stressed.
The Cátedra is a reference centre for dozens of educational departments around the country, where some 30,000 elderly students have graduated.
In these classes, the older adults update their knowledge, raise their cultural level, understand themselves better and gain the capacity to communicate with other generations, psychologist Teresa Orozco, president of the Havana Cátedra, told IPS.
Meanwhile, the 120 Year Club was founded two years ago by the Caribbean Medical Association, a Cuban non-governmental organisation which forms part of the Association of Caribbean States and has special consultative status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
Our philosophy is that it is possible to live to 120 without a huge effort; the main thing is to have that as a goal, and to start, said Dr. Eugenio Selman-Housein Abdo, the president of the club. Today we have 6,700 members from 34 countries, some of whom are over 100.
According to figures provided by Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, director of the Centre for Studies on Population and Development, Cuba was home to close to 1.7 million elderly persons in 2005, including more than 300,000 people over 80. Of the total number of older adults, 59.1 percent were women.
These statistics, added to the low population growth, the decline in the birth rate and the high life expectancy at birth make Cuba one of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean with the oldest populations.
In 2004, life expectancy stood at 77 years and the net reproduction rate the average number of female babies born per woman during her reproductive life was just 0.75.
Cuban demographers are especially concerned about the steadily declining birth rate, which dropped from 1.54 children per woman in 2004 to 1.49 in 2005.
That means economically inactive persons will outnumber economically active persons by 2015, and the contributions made towards social security by those who are working will not cover the pensions of retirees.
More than 1.5 million Cubans are covered by the social security system, 700,000 of whom drew monthly pensions of less than 100 pesos (four dollars) until May 2005, when pensions were raised by an average of 50 pesos (two dollars) a month.
The ageing of the population puts strong pressure on the social security system and raises, as it does worldwide, the issue of financial sustainability, warned a study on Cuban social policy published in 2004 by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the National Institute of Economic Research.
