Economic and Demographic Factors in Improving Living Levels in the Caribbean Region

Abstract

In topography, as in social and political organization, the circum Caribbean region is characterized by a diversity that has few parallels, if any, among land areas of comparable size in the world. Well before the Castro revolution in Cuba, the region had been identified as one with special economic needs and problems. These must be faced and sur? mounted if the Caribbean countries are to achieve the living levels to which their inhabitants understandably aspire.1 The relatively low levels of productivity and income that prevail in this potentially rich region are not unrelated to the many geographical and political obstacles that stand in the way of efficient allocation of re? sources and obstruct free movement of goods, capital, and manpower.2 Moreover, the recently prevailing rates of population growth within the Caribbean region, both on the mainland and on the islands, are among the highest in the world today.3 At the same time, opportunities for internal and out-migration are relatively few.4 These facts accentuate the urgency of intensified and coordinated economic development, if present living levels are to be maintained and especially if they are to improve. Inasmuch as progress toward economic integration and higher levels of productivity is more evident on the mainland than in the island sub region, the primary focus of this paper will be on the latter as more of a problem area. Within the islands, living levels range from moderate and slowly improving, to very low, even when compared with less de? veloped areas of the world. Then there is Cuba, which constitutes a special case. Before 1959, when a program of radical social and eco? nomic experiment was undertaken, it had the highest per capita income among the island populations.5 Potentially rich, it could support rapid economic growth, given conditions more favorable than presently prevailing.