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Venezuela - People

An estimated 29 million people lived in Venezuela as of 2011. The population growth rate was 1.6% per year, and roughly 47% of Venezuelans are under the age of 25. According to the 2001 census, almost 90% of the population lives in urban areas. Metropolitan Caracas, the country's largest city, has an estimated 3.2 million inhabitants. Venezuela was proud of its tradition as a melting pot, and the majority of its citizens had a mixed racial heritage of Caucasian, African, and American Indian elements.

Society

Before the oil era began in the mid-1920s, about 70 percent of the Venezuelan population was rural, illiterate, and poor. Over the next fifty years, the ratios were reversed so that over 88 percent of the population became urban and literate. No group has escaped the impact of this modernization process. Even the most isolated peasants and tribal Indians felt some effects of this economic growth, which opened up access to the elite stature, expanded opportunities for large numbers of immigrants, increased the size, power, and cohesiveness of the middle class, and created a sector of organized workers within the lower class.

Although the traditional gap between rich and poor persisted in democratic Venezuela, the modern upper class was by no means homogeneous. Traditional society--rural, rigid, deeply stratified--changed rapidly during the course of the twentieth century. Perhaps ironically, the man most responsible for giving impetus to this change was the semiliterate dictator Juan Vicente Gómez. The primary catalyst of the social change that began under his dictatorship was economic, and it stemmed not from the established source of land controlled by powerful hacendados, but from the subsoil in the form of petroleum extracted and marketed through the efforts of technicians and technocrats. Gómez, by permitting and encouraging oil exploration, laid the basis for the emergence of an urbanized, prosperous, and comparatively powerful Venezuela from the chrysalis of a traditionally rural, agricultural, and isolated society.

The trends away from the traditional society accelerated after 1945, particularly during the decade of dictatorship from 1948 to 1958 and under the post-1958 democratic regime, which was often described as the reign of the middle class. Despite the vast social and economic changes that took place; however, the economic elite remained a small group separated both economically and socially from the rest of society by an enormous income gap and by a whiter and more Hispanicized ethnic makeup.

In general, those who considered themselves the Venezuelan elite, and were thus considered by their fellow citizens, thought of themselves as the upholders of superior values. Most claimed at least one postsecondary degree, possibly with a further specialization abroad. Concentrated in business and the professions, the Venezuelan upper class tended to disdain manual work and to patronize (in both senses of the word) members of the lower classes. In this particular sense, Venezuela was one of the very few countries in Latin America where a number of elite-supported scholarly and community welfare foundations provided support for an imaginative variety of programs and scholarships. These foundations often carried the names of elite families who prided themselves on their sense of civic duty.

The members of the elite also tended to emphasize publicly their devotion to the Roman Catholic Church and faith and to display a more stable family life than did the rest of the society. That is, although divorce did occur in this class, children were usually born within a legally constituted family union. Many of the younger women managed to combine profession and family, often with the help of servants and members of the extended family.

Perhaps surprisingly for those who visit or observe Venezuelan society for the first time, the elite was not a closed and static group. Prominent politicians, even those from humble backgrounds, could easily marry into the elite. Successful professionals could also move up and find acceptance among the upper class. This relative openness of the elite may serve to mitigate to some extent the extremes that persist, particularly in economic terms, between the Venezuelan rich and those considered "marginal."

Most accounts describe the Venezuelan middle class as the country's most dynamic and heterogeneous class in terms of social and racial origins, and as the greatest comparative beneficiary of the process of economic development. Consisting of small businessmen, industrialists, teachers, government workers, professionals, and managerial and technical personnel, this class was almost entirely urban. Some professions, such as teaching and government service, were traditionally associated with middle-class status, whereas newer technical professions]expanded the options and enhanced mobility within this class. Improved educational and job opportunities since the establishment of democratic government in 1958]enabled more women to enter the labor force, thus either helping themselves and/or their families to attain middle-class status. Not surprisingly, those who passed from the lower to the middle class in Venezuela often attributed their changed status to their education, and, accordingly, many struggled to send their children to private schools so that they could move still farther up the social ladder.

A few members of the middle class moved into the elite ranks through successful business deals or by marriage. It should be noted, however, that class antagonism in Venezuela has been tempered somewhat as a result of the special efforts made by political parties to appeal to and to co-opt middle-class voters. As a result, the Venezuelan middle class had reason to feel much more politically empowered and significant than did similar groups elsewhere in Latin America. Besides the political parties, active participation in a variety of social groups and organizations further strengthened the commitment of this particular middle class to the overall sociopolitical system.

Constitutional provisions]helped both the middle and the poorer classes fulfill their aspirations in terms of greater personal freedom, expanded economic opportunities, and greater individual involvement in government. At the core of the 1961 constitution was a commitment to social justice; this commitment, in turn, has led to the creation and funding of government agencies designed to provide to the middle class and to the poor many services that had traditionally been reserved to the wealthy prior to the 1958 coup. The implementation of many social justice goals was all the more remarkable because it occurred not only during Democratic Action (Acción Democrática--AD) governments, which, by definition, were center-left, but also under Christian Democratic (Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente--COPEI) administrations, which were more centerright in the Venezuelan spectrum.

The majority of peasants were wage laborers, sharecroppers, or squatters on private or state-owned lands, and their meager income placed them at the outer margins of Venezuela's general prosperity. Rural life has changed little since colonial times, in spite of concerted efforts by governments committed to agrarian reform. The best land still belonged to a relatively few owners, many of them absentees, while the dwindling rural population eked out a miserable subsistence on inadequate tracts of less-than-prime farmland. Even the agrarian reform, which had distributed millions of hectares of land since 1960, had not as of the 1990s gone on to the essential next step of providing the peasants legal title to their parcels.

Massive rural-to-urban migration has resulted in the emergence of a burgeoning urban lower class, the most successful members of which]become urban workers. In the Venezuelan social view, the lower class consisted of those in low-status occupations (usually manual), the illiterate, and recent immigrants from the countryside. For many, the transition was traumatic and stressful, as epitomized by the presence of innumerable abandoned children in the streets of the capital city.

Population at Beginning of Chavismo

When Hugo Chávez assumed the Venezuelan presidency on February 2, 1999, the country's population stood at approximately 23.4 million people.¹ Venezuela at that time was experiencing relative demographic stability, with a growing population benefiting from oil revenues and a relatively functional economy. The country had historically been a destination for European and Latin American migration during the twentieth century, particularly in the post-World War II period, which had significantly diversified the nation's demographic composition.²

Population in 2025

Current population estimates for Venezuela in 2025 vary considerably depending on the methodology and source, reflecting the profound demographic disruption caused by mass emigration. United Nations estimates place the mid-year 2025 population at approximately 28.5 million people.³ However, alternative estimates range from 26.7 million to over 30 million, with the variation largely attributable to different assumptions about the scale of unrecorded emigration and the difficulty of tracking irregular migration flows.⁴

The population trajectory represents a dramatic departure from expected demographic trends. Without the massive emigration crisis, Venezuela's population would likely have exceeded 32-33 million by 2025 based on pre-crisis growth patterns. The divergence between actual and projected population growth represents one of the most significant demographic disruptions in modern Latin American history, comparable in magnitude to the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on Syria's population.⁵

Total Emigration Outflows

The Venezuelan exodus represents the largest recorded refugee and migrant crisis in the Americas. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration, approximately 7.9 million Venezuelans have left their country since the onset of the economic and political crisis, with the vast majority of departures occurring after 2015.⁶ This figure represents approximately 25 percent of Venezuela's 2015 population, marking one of the largest proportional population displacements globally in recent decades.⁷

The emigration crisis evolved through several distinct phases. During the onset period from 2014 to 2017, approximately 1.2 million Venezuelans emigrated, with the demographic profile shifting from highly skilled labor migration to family migration. The acute phase from 2018 to 2020 saw 3.5 million additional departures, characterized by adults aged 20 to 45 years and predominantly women traveling alone. The COVID-19 pandemic period beginning in 2021 witnessed continued but reduced emigration, with an increasing proportion of older adults and family reunification patterns.⁸

The root causes driving this unprecedented outflow include the profound economic collapse following the 2015 decline in oil prices, hyperinflation exceeding 65 percent, GDP contraction of approximately 75 percent between 2013 and 2021, extreme poverty affecting more than 75 percent of the population, pervasive violence, political persecution, human rights violations, and the collapse of health care and education services.⁹

Primary Destinations

Approximately 85 percent of Venezuelan refugees and migrants, totaling 6.6 million people, remain within Latin America and the Caribbean region.¹⁰ Colombia, as Venezuela's largest Spanish-speaking neighbor, hosts the greatest number of displaced Venezuelans, with approximately one-third of all international Venezuelan migrants. The concentration in Lima, Peru, is particularly noteworthy, as it has become the city with the largest Venezuelan population outside Venezuela itself, with approximately one million residents.¹¹

Migration patterns have evolved considerably in response to changing policies and economic conditions. Until recently, primary destinations included the United States, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador. However, new immigration restrictions, particularly those imposed by the United States affecting regional transit routes, have forced many Venezuelans to reconsider their destinations. In 2025, migratory flows are being reconfigured, with Spain and Brazil emerging as increasingly favorable destinations alongside Colombia, which continues to serve as a key reception point.¹²

The passage through the Darién Gap, the remote stretch of rainforest between Colombia and Panama, has become a critical transit point. During the first nine months of 2023, a record 400,000 migrants crossed the Darién, with Venezuelans accounting for approximately 60 percent of crossings, representing the highest proportion of any nationality.¹³ In 2023 alone, 262,633 Venezuelans crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, up from 189,520 in 2022, despite the dangerous and irregular nature of these routes.¹⁴

U.S. Repatriation Efforts

The Trump administration's approach to Venezuelan migrants has been characterized by aggressive deportation efforts and the revocation of protective status measures. Upon taking office in January 2025, President Donald Trump implemented several significant policy changes targeting Venezuelan nationals in the United States.¹⁵

In February 2025, Venezuela and the United States reached an agreement to resume repatriation flights following negotiations between President Nicolás Maduro and Richard Grenell, Trump's special envoy. The Venezuelan government announced that the first deportees arrived on February 10, 2025, with 190 individuals returned through an arrangement requiring the United States to treat deportees "with absolute respect for their dignity and human rights."¹⁶ By early May 2025, more than 3,400 Venezuelans had been deported from the United States since the beginning of the Trump administration, part of a broader deportation effort that encompassed over 139,000 individuals of all nationalities.¹⁷

The Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for the first time since World War II in March 2025, designating the Tren de Aragua gang as an invading force to justify expedited deportations without standard due process protections. This controversial action resulted in 238 Venezuelan men being deported to El Salvador's notorious CECOT maximum-security prison, despite a federal court order temporarily blocking such deportations. The flights departed before the ruling could be enforced, prompting subsequent legal challenges regarding contempt of court and violations of constitutional due process.¹⁸

Federal courts have issued conflicting rulings on the legality of these deportation measures. Multiple judges in New York, Texas, and Colorado ruled that Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act exceeded constitutional authority and violated statutory limitations, while a Pennsylvania judge upheld the administration's authority. In a September 2025 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit determined in a 2-1 majority ruling that the administration could not use the Alien Enemies Act to expedite deportations of alleged gang members, stating that "mass immigration" could not be equated to "sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt or to otherwise harm the United States."¹⁹

The Trump administration also moved to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans, affecting approximately 600,000 individuals across two designation cohorts. TPS had been extended by the Biden administration to provide protection from deportation and work authorization for Venezuelans who fled the humanitarian crisis. In early 2025, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of these protections, arguing that the program had been "abused, exploited, and politicized as a de facto amnesty program."²⁰ Federal judges in San Francisco and New York temporarily blocked the terminations, citing procedural violations and evidence of racial animus in the decision-making process. However, the Supreme Court subsequently allowed the administration to proceed with ending TPS for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans who received their designation in 2023, while legal challenges continue for the remaining cohort.²¹

Venezuela's government has framed the acceptance of deportees within its "Return to the Homeland" program, which began in 2023 and has facilitated the return of approximately 900,000 Venezuelans from various countries. The Maduro administration attributes the emigration crisis to economic sanctions and "psychological warfare campaigns" conducted by the United States and its allies, positioning the repatriation program as humanitarian assistance for Venezuelans wishing to return home.²²

Cuban Immigration to Venezuela

Venezuela experienced significant inward migration of Cuban nationals during the Chávez and Maduro eras, representing a reversal of the typical Latin American migration pattern during this period. This movement primarily consisted of Cuban doctors, health professionals, and government advisors deployed as part of bilateral cooperation agreements between the Castro regime and the Venezuelan government.²³

The Cuban medical presence in Venezuela began shortly after Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency in 1999, when Fidel Castro convinced him of the effectiveness of deploying Cuban health professionals abroad. This arrangement became central to the Misión Barrio Adentro program, initiated in 2003, which aimed to provide primary health care to Venezuela's poor rural areas and urban slums. By 2006, approximately 15,000 to 20,000 Cuban doctors were working in Venezuela, with some estimates placing the total number of Cuban health professionals at over 29,000 by 2008, representing the vast majority of the 38,544 Cuban health workers serving in 75 countries globally at that time.²⁴

The arrangement functioned as a barter system wherein Venezuela provided Cuba with approximately 100,000 barrels of subsidized oil per day, accounting for roughly half of Cuba's domestic energy consumption, valued at an estimated 3.2 billion dollars annually. In exchange, Cuba supplied medical personnel and strategic political advice that assisted Chávez in consolidating his government's power.²⁵

Cuban doctors operated under challenging conditions characterized by long work hours, difficult living circumstances, constant monitoring by Venezuelan and Cuban officials, and restrictions on movement and defection. Reports indicated that Cuban health professionals were housed in poor neighborhoods, often sharing apartments, and were subject to surveillance by Bolivarian brigades who ensured compliance with "revolutionary duties." Beyond their medical functions, Cuban doctors were reportedly directed to engage in political activities, including monitoring electoral centers, encouraging voter participation for Chávez and later Maduro, and strategically distributing medicine and services to influence electoral outcomes.²⁶

The presence of Cuban advisors extended beyond the health sector into sensitive strategic areas including communications, intelligence services, and internal security. By 2010, Cuban Minister Ramiro Valdés, regarded as the third-ranking member of Cuba's ruling elite and former head of Cuba's political police, arrived in Venezuela officially to address electricity shortages but was widely believed to be advising on internal security and surveillance systems. This deployment reinforced concerns among opposition figures about the "cubanization" of Venezuela's security apparatus.²⁷

The Cuban medical program generated significant controversy within Venezuela. While patients in poor communities praised the initiative for providing free, accessible health care close to their homes, critics argued that the program undermined Venezuelan medical professionals who earned significantly lower salaries than what the government paid Cuba for the services. Venezuelan doctors at public hospitals earned approximately 300 dollars per month while their facilities remained underfunded and deteriorating. In 2003, a Venezuelan court ruled in favor of the Venezuelan Federation of Doctors and ordered that Cuban doctors be replaced by properly qualified Venezuelan professionals, but the Chávez government refused to implement the ruling.²⁸

Many Cuban doctors sought to defect from the program. Reports from 2006 indicated that approximately 200 Cuban doctors had departed Venezuela through Maiquetía International Airport over a twelve-month period, paying bribes ranging from 300 to 1,000 dollars per person to both Venezuelan and Cuban officials. The United States facilitated such defections by lifting immigration restrictions for Cuban doctors in 2006, allowing them to enter legally rather than claiming asylum as illegal immigrants, which prompted expectations of an "avalanche" of defections.²⁹

While precise figures for the total number of Cubans who migrated to Venezuela during this period remain difficult to establish due to the politically sensitive nature of the arrangement, estimates suggest that between 15,000 and 30,000 Cuban medical professionals and advisors were present in Venezuela at the program's peak, with considerable turnover due to defections and rotations. This represented one of the largest organized bilateral migration flows in the region during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, though it was dwarfed by the subsequent Venezuelan emigration crisis that would eventually displace nearly 8 million people.³⁰

Demographic Impact and Future Outlook

The combined effect of massive emigration and limited immigration has fundamentally altered Venezuela's demographic trajectory. The country has experienced a population decline or stagnation unprecedented for a nation not actively engaged in warfare. The loss of approximately 25 percent of the population has disproportionately affected working-age adults, creating an inverted demographic pyramid with implications for economic productivity, dependency ratios, and social services. Many migrants possess higher levels of education than the general population in their host countries, representing a significant brain drain that further undermines Venezuela's capacity for economic recovery.³¹

The scale of the Venezuelan diaspora has created demographic shifts throughout South America comparable to major historical migration events. Host countries including Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador have experienced population increases of 3 to 5 percent from Venezuelan migration alone, placing considerable strain on public services, labor markets, and social cohesion. However, research suggests that with appropriate integration policies, Venezuelan migrants have the potential to contribute positively to host country GDP growth, with projections indicating possible increases of 2.5 to 4.5 percentage points by 2030 in major receiving countries.³²

Future migration patterns remain highly uncertain and dependent on political developments within Venezuela. Surveys conducted following the disputed 2024 presidential election indicated that over 5 million additional Venezuelans expressed willingness to emigrate if conditions continued to deteriorate. Border statistics from Colombia showed August 2024 was the busiest month for Venezuelan movements in approximately two years, suggesting that political instability continues to drive emigration pressures despite millions having already departed.³³