Tag Archives: Social

Cuba: The Persistence of Institutional Racism

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Arch Ritter

Esteban Morales, HAVANA TIMES, May 16, 2013

Who is responsible for the fact that our national statistics do not offer the information needed to conduct a thorough study of the racial issue in Cuba?

— While it is true that racism, as a conscious, institutional policy does not exist in Cuba, this does not mean we have done away with institutional racism as such.

Who is responsible for the fact that the issue of color isn’t mentioned in Cuban schools, that race isn’t a subject of study or research in any University syllabus, or that these questions aren’t sufficiently addressed by the media? Without a doubt, the Ministry of Education, Cuban television and the official press are responsible.

Who is responsible for the fact our national statistics do not offer the information needed to conduct a thorough study of the racial issue in Cuba, or for the fact our socio-economic statistics make no mention of skin color? Without a doubt, the National Statistics Bureau (ONE) is responsible.

So, has institutional racism truly disappeared? Apparently not, or, at the very least, it has disappeared only relatively, for our State institutions still do not offer us the results we would expect from them were they actually designed to combat racism, showing many deficiencies in terms of the mechanisms that could help us eradicate this phenomenon.

If these mechanisms were improved, we would be in a much better position to combat racism andracial discrimination, which still exist in our society. These phenomena aren’t entirely inherited from the past; they are also the result of flawed social systems that contribute to their reproduction.

These flaws we continue to perpetuate stem, to a considerable extent, from the flawed mechanisms of different State institutions.

We could say, thus, we have not totally eliminated so-called institutional racism in Cuba, and that this form of racism often finds refuge in the lack of political will shown by some State institutions that, far from helping eradicate the phenomenon, contribute to its survival.

It will be impossible to win the battle against stereotypes, racism and racial discrimination if our educational institutions, our media, our scientific and statistics organizations do not join forces. Without these four institutional pillars, we will not come out victorious of this great struggle we have undertaken.

Prof. Esteban Morales

Posted in Blog | Tagged Human Rights, Race, Social | Leave a comment

CUBA in the UNDP 2011 Human Development Report

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Arch Ritter

By Arch Ritter, November 3 2011

The 2011 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Report (HDR) was just published on November 2.

Cuba is back in the main Human Development Index (HDI) and the statistical tables of the 2011 HDR after a complete absence last year mainly due to its unorthodox measurement of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a central component of the HDI. Presumably the UNDP now accepts Cuba’s approach and its HDI is recalculated and is presented for the 1985 to 2011 period.

The 2011 Human Development Report is especially interesting this year focusing on Environment and Equity issues and including statistical measures in both of these areas for all countries of the world for which such data is available. The UNDP HDR is the most reliable and comprehensive “Report Card” on most aspects of human development (though with little attention to the political dimension) for all countries of the world).

The full report is available and can be down-loaded here: Human Development Report 2011, Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All; http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2011/download/

Cuba’s place in the 2011 Human Development Index is summarized in Table 1. The basic methodology used for the HDI measure is described below in the Appendix. Cuba’s overall ranking in the world is # 51 for 2011 – the same ranking as in 2009 which used a somewhat different methodology. Its rank in Latin America in 2011 was # 5, up from # 6 in 2009. Interestingly enough, Cuba can be seen in Chart 1, as somewhat of an “outlier” in that its Gross National Income per capita is relatively low while its overall HDI is high.

Source: UNDP Human Development Report, 2011

Chart 1. Cuba’s Human Development Index and Gross National Income per capita in Purchasing Power terms in 2011 in Comparative International perspective.

Source: Calculated from UNDP HDR 2011
Of the three components of the HDI, Cuba did poorly in the Gross National Income measure, placing 23^rd in Latin America and 103rd in the world. The Life Expectancy component was strong, though Cuba was behind Costa Rica for this indicator and tied with Chile. The “Mean Years of Schooling” measure at 9.9 years is probably not unreasonable.

The big surprise in the HDI calculation is the second element of the education component. The “Expected Years of Schooling” indicator is an amazing 17.5 years, ahead of all other countries in the world with the exception of Iceland, Ireland, and Australia. This is a curious result and presumably is due to a mechanical calculation based on current enrolment at all levels of education and population of official school age for each level of education. The number for this sub-component accounts for about one-sixth of the weight for the whole HDI measure. This number is high perhaps because of the enrolments at Municipal Universities and the retraining of displaced sugar sector workers that seems to still be continuing. The quality of expected years of education is not considered. As a genuine indicator of human development, this measure is weak because, unlike Life Expectancy and GNI per capita, it measures input and effort more so than output and the result.

The trend of Cuba’s HDI from 1985 to 2011 and is illustrated in Chart 2 in comparison with the long-term HDI trends for the other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. (The measure for Cuba is the light blue line with that includes the HDI numbers. The other countries of the region are in the darker colours, but unfortunately are unmarked.) The decline of the HDI according to this new UNDP measure after about 1989 is apparent, reflecting the 35% reduction in GDP per person from 1990 to 1993. Reasonably steady improvement then occurred right to 2011, as a result of the improvements in GDP per capita and steady improvements in health and education.

Chart 2. Cuba’s Human Development Index Trend, 1985-2011, in Comparative Latin American Perspective

Source: Calculated from UNDP HDR 2011

Some of the environmental numbers for Cuba are of interest, though the coverage is incomplete. Some other variants of the HDI, namely the ”Inequality-adjusted HDI” and the “Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index” exclude Cuba, presumably for lack of data.

Appendix: Measurement of the 2011 Human Development Index; (from UNDP HPR 2011) See http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/hdi/

The education component of the HDI is now measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. Mean years of schooling is estimated based on educational attainment data from censuses and surveys available in the UNESCO Institute for Statistics database and Barro and Lee (2010) methodology). Expected years of schooling estimates are based on enrolment by age at all levels of education and population of official school age for each level of education. Expected years of schooling is capped at 18 years. The indicators are normalized using a minimum value of zero and maximum values are set to the actual observed maximum value of mean years of schooling from the countries in the time series, 1980–2010, that is 13.1 years estimated for Czech Republic in 2005. Expected years of schooling is maximized by its cap at 18 years. The education index is the geometric mean of two indices.

The life expectancy at birth component of the HDI is calculated using a minimum value of 20 years and maximum value of 83.4 years. This is the observed maximum value of the indicators from the countries in the time series, 1980–2010. Thus, the longevity component for a country where life expectancy birth is 55 years would be 0.552.

For the wealth component, the goalpost for minimum income is $100 (PPP) and the maximum is $107,721 (PPP), both estimated during the same period, 1980-2011.

The decent standard of living component is measured by GNI per capita (PPP$) instead of GDP per capita (PPP$) The HDI uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing importance of income with increasing GNI. The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are then aggregated into a composite index using geometric mean. Refer to the Human Development Report 2011 Technical notes [388 KB] for more details.

Posted in Blog | Tagged Economic Growth, Education, Health, International Relations, Social, UNDP HDR 2011 | 2 Comments

Cuba legalizes sale, purchase of private property

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Arch Ritter

PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press; Nov. 3, 2011 8:08 AM ET
Original Article available here: Cuba legalizes sale, purchase of private property

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba announced Thursday it will allow real estate to be bought and sold for the first time since the early days of the revolution, the most important reform yet in a series of free-market changes under President Raul Castro.

The law, which takes effect Nov. 10, applies to citizens and permanent residents only, according to a red-letter headline on the front page of Thursday’s Communist Party daily Granma.

The brief article said details of the new law would be published imminently in the government’s Official Gazette. Authorities have said previously that sales will be subject to taxes and the rules will not allow anyone to accumulate great property holdings.

The change follows October’s legalization of buying and selling cars, though with restrictions that still make it hard for ordinary Cubans to buy new vehicles.

Castro has also allowed citizens to go into business for themselves in a number of approved jobs — everything from party clowns to food vendors to accountants — and has pledged to streamline the state-dominated economy by eliminating half a million government workers.

Cuba’s government employs over 80 percent of the workers in the island’s command economy, paying wages of just $20 a month in return for free education and health care, and nearly free housing, transportation and basic foods. Castro has said repeatedly that the system is not working since taking over from his brother Fidel in 2008, but he has vowed that Cuba will remain a Socialist state.

Cubans have long bemoaned the ban on property sales, which took effect in stages over the first years after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. In an effort to fight absentee ownership by wealthy landlords, Fidel enacted a reform that gave title to whomever lived in a home. Most who left the island forfeited their properties to the state.

Since no property market was allowed, the rules have meant that for decades Cubans could only exchange property through complicated barter arrangements, or through even murkier black-market deals where thousands of dollars change hands under the table, with no legal recourse if transactions go bad.

Some Cubans enter into sham marriages to make deed transfers easier. Others make deals to move into homes ostensibly to care for an elderly person living there, only to inherit the property when the person dies.

The island’s crumbling housing stock has meant that many are forced to live in overcrowded apartments with multiple generations crammed into a few rooms. Even divorce hasn’t necessarily meant separation in Cuba, where estranged couples are often forced to live together for years while they work out alternative housing.

The new law will eliminate a state agency that regulated the exchange-by-barter of homes, meaning that from now on sales will only need the seal of a notary, according to Granma.

The government has also dropped hints in recent months about the new property law, saying it will allow family members to inherit homes even if they are not living in the property.

Cubans who can afford it will be allowed to own one home in the city and one in the countryside.