Demography
Cuba's population, totaling well over 11 million, is largely urbanized. Most of the country's inhabitants -- about 70 percent -- live in urban centers, while the remaining 30 percent are rural dwellers. Of the urban population, a large concentration lives in the capital city of Havana.
Culture and Identity
Culturally as well as ethnically, Cuba is a blend of Spanish and African influences. Although it is considered to be a multiethnic society, over half the total population - approximately 51 percent - is mulatto, a Spanish-African mixture. About 37 percent of the population is of Spanish origin, another 11 percent is of African ancestry, and the remaining 1 percent is of Chinese extraction. The most tangible legacy of the Spanish heritage in Cuba is prevailing use of the Spanish language.
Culture and Religion
Officially, Cuba has been an atheist state for most of the Castro era, which began in 1959. A constitutional amendment adopted on July 12, 1992, however, changed the nature of the Cuban state from atheist to secular, enabling religious believers to belong to the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). The largest organized religion is the Roman Catholic Church, although other religious affiliations, such as Judaism and various Christian denominations of theProtestant persuasion, are also represented.
Official affiliations aside, Santeria, a fusion of a native West African religion (called Orisha) and Roman Catholicism, are actually the most widely practiced religions in Cuba. Santeria emerged during the time of the trans-Atlantic slave trade when African slaves were brough t to the Americas, systematically Christianized, and forbidden to practice their ancestral religions. In response, they developed a way to retain some semblance of their native African beliefs by equating each Orisha deity with a corresponding Roman Catholic saint. The correlation was applied relatively easily, as exemplified by the alignment of the Orisha spirit of war, Oggzn, with St. Peter, the patron saint of war.
A curiosity about Santeria to observers from outside the culture is the seeming anomaly of how practitioners of the religion could also practice Catholicism. Some scholars have claimed that Santeria and Catholicism are intrinsically related, while others view both religions as being distinct, in and of themselves. Regardless of which interpretation is promulgated, the fact remains that Santeria is a derivative of both West African Orisha devotion and Roman Catholicism. It is an example of a syncretistic formulation, not an unusual phenomen on outside the strictly European cultural purview, and its existence is a result of the interaction between indigenous African beliefs and Catholic practices.
Cultural Syncretism
In a broader sense, the example of Santeria, as a form of syncretism, is illustrative of the cultural framework of the Caribbean. That is to say, religious and cultural blending was, and continues to be, a hallmark of Caribbean society. As noted earlier, the people of Cuba are predominantly of mixed cultural and ethnic backgrounds, encompassing yet another indicator of cultural fusion in this part of the world.
Cuban music, such as the mambo, is another example. The Cuban mambo blends African and Latin rhythms, yet exists as an independent musical form that is recognized as part of the national culture of Cuba.
Society and Quality of Life
In terms of socio-economic issues and concerns, Cuba's social infrastructure includes a well-established educational system. Education is compulsory at the elementary level, and all levels of education, including university education, are provided by the state. Approximately 92 percent of the population has at least a high school education and the national literacy rate is almost universal at about 99.8 percent.
The socialized healthcare system is universally available to Cuban citizens, and touted as one of the more sophisticated systems of health care in the Caribbean, with many qualified physicians. The infant mortality rate is approximately 6.04 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births, as noted in recent estimates. Likewise, life expectancy is 80 years for women and 75 years for men, according to recent estimates.
About 13.6 percent of GDP is spent on education in this country; about 11.8 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to water and sanitation is regarded as very good although there may be some limits in certain rural areas.
While the general framework of Cuba' s social infrastructure has continued to function with basic adequacy, the island faced significant socioeconomic hardships in the 1990s as many of its former socialist allies and trading partners, especially the former Soviet Union, moved toward market economies and democratization, and withdrew their previous financial support of the Cuban regime. As a result, there have been strains on the socialist infrastructure -- most ostensibly in areas related to housing and to a lesser extent, in the realm of education and health.
Human Development
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 177 countries, the HDI placed Cuba in the high human development category, at 51st place. However, Cuba was omitted from the most recent estimate done by the United Nations.
Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Human Rights
Meanwhile, reports of human rights violations continue to occur within Cuba. Although the Castro government has tempered its heavy-handedness in this regard, little cooperation with human rights observer groups has been facilitated, so it is difficult to measure the degree to which Cuba's human rights record has improved, if indeed, this is the case.