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Zenith and Eclipse: A Comparative Look at Socio-Economic Conditions in Pre-Castro and Present Day Cuba

Released by the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, February 9, 1998. Revised June 2002

 SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION

An enduring myth is that 1950's Cuba was a socially and economically backward country whose development was jump-started by the Castro government.  In fact, according to readily available historical data, Cuba was a relatively advanced country in 1958, certainly by Latin American standards and, in some areas, by world standards.  The data show that Cuba has at best maintained what were already high levels of development in health and education, but at an extraordinary cost to the overall welfare of the Cuban people.  These include access to "basics" such as adequate levels of food and electricity, but also access to consumer goods, the availability of which have increased significantly in other Latin American countries in recent decades.

 In this study, the most recent data available has been used.  Castro does not allow regular surveys on certain Cuban topics that would ultimately reflect the continuing steady decline of the Cuban economy. Therefore, the data provided is not as current as that which would be used in ideal circumstances.

It is true that Cuba's infant mortality rate is the second best in Latin America today, but it was the best in Latin America -- and the 13th lowest in the world -- in pre-Castro Cuba.  Cuba also has improved the literacy of its people, but Cuba had an excellent educational system and impressive literacy rates in the 1950's.

On the other hand, many economic and social indicators have declined since the 1959 revolution.  Pre-Castro Cuba ranked third in Latin America in per capita food consumption but ranked last out of the 11 countries analyzed in terms of percent of increase since 1957.  Overall, Cuban per capita food consumption from 1954-1997 has decreased by 11.47 percent [1].  Per capita consumption of cereals, tubers, and meat are today all below 1950's levels[2].  The number of automobiles in Cuba has fallen since the 1950's[3] -- the only country in Latin America for which this is the case.  The number of telephone lines in Cuba also has been virtually frozen at 1950's levels[4].  Cuba once ranked first in Latin America and fifth in the world in television sets per capita.  In 1996 it barely ranked ninth[5] in Latin America and is well back in the ranks globally.

Cuba's rate of development of electrical power since the 1950's also ranks behind every other country in Latin America including Haiti[6].  Cuba’s rice production has finally seen a minor increase above the 1950s levels.  By virtually any measure of macroeconomic stability, Cuba was progressing at a far greater rate in 1958 than it is today.  Finally, the Castro government shut down what was a remarkably vibrant media sector in the 1950's, when the relatively small country had 58 daily newspapers of differing political hues and ranked eighth in the world in number of radio stations.  

METHODOLOGY

This paper, an updated version of the original, assesses Cuba's level of development across a variety of economic and social indicators during the revolutionary period (1959-present), especially relative to that of other countries during the same period.  It relies most extensively on UN data, particularly from the Statistical Yearbook and Demographic Yearbook, which are considered the standard data compendiums in the development field.  Trade data is derived from the IMF's Direction of Trade Statistics, which provides a consistent data series dating back to the 1950's.  For the various international comparisons and rankings listed below, only those countries acquiring independence prior to 1958 and having relatively consistent data available for the period 1955-present have been included. (The former stipulation excludes many highly developed Caribbean countries from consideration.) In many cases data is the most current available for Cuba since the Government of Cuba no longer allows these surveys to be done. 

HEALTH

The health care system is often touted by many analysts as one of the Castro government's greatest achievements.  What this analysis ignores is that the revolutionary government inherited an already-advanced health sector when it took power in 1959.

Cuba's infant mortality rate of 32 per 1,000 live births in 1957 was the lowest in Latin America and the 13th lowest in the world, according to UN data.  Cuba ranked ahead of France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, and Spain, all of which would eventually pass Cuba in this indicator during the following decades[7].

Cuba’s comparative world ranking according to data in Table 1 has fallen from 13th to last out of the 25 countries examined.  Also missing from the conventional analysis of Cuba's infant mortality rates is its staggering abortion rate of 77.7 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 1996[8] -- which, because of selective termination of "high-risk" pregnancies, yields lower numbers for infant mortality.  Cuba's abortion rate was the 3rd highest out of the 60 countries studied.

In terms of physicians and dentists per capita, Cuba in 1957 ranked third in Latin America, behind only Uruguay and Argentina -- both of which were more advanced than the United States in this measure.  Cuba's 128 physicians and dentists per 100,000 people in 1957 was the same as the Netherlands, and ahead of the United Kingdom (122 per 100,000 people) and Finland (96).

Unfortunately, the UN statistical yearbook no longer publishes these statistics, so more recent comparisons are not possible, but it is completely erroneous to characterize pre-Revolutionary Cuba as backward in terms of healthcare.

EDUCATION

Cuba has been among the most literate countries in Latin America since well before the Castro revolution, when it ranked fourth. Since then, Cuba has increased its literacy rate from 76 to 96 percent and is tied today for second place with Chile and Costa Rica[9].  Argentina is the most literate country in Latin America.  This improvement is impressive, but not unique, among Latin American countries. Panama, Paraguay, Colombia, Brazil, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Haiti -- which all ranked just behind Cuba in this indicator during the 1950's – have equaled or bettered Cuba's improvement when measured in percentage terms[10].