Youth and the Cuban Revolution

Abstract

For the past 30 years Cuban youth has experienced uninterrupted upward social mobility. This trend is apparent in the increase in the level of schooling with decreasing age: whereas in the 55 to 59 age group the level of technicalprofessional schooling and higher education is 8.06 percent, in the 35 to 39 age group it is 14.89 percent and in the 25 to 29 group it is as high as 17.64 percent (CEE, 1981: 169-170, Table 40). The age group composition of the occupational structure also shows this upward mobility: 42.8 percent of the country's professionals and technicians are between 17 and 29 years of age (CEE, 1985b). Similarly, 62.8 percent of rural youth is incorporated into advanced forms of organization of labor such as production cooperatives (CEE, 1986: 113-114, Table 4). In key branches of the economy such as electronics, the machine tool industry, and mining and metallurgy, young workers make up more than 40 percent of the total workforce (CEE, 1985b). These indicators are the result of a policy, maintained throughout the history of the revolution, of giving priority to mass education and guaranteeing access to it to young people of all social sectors. Within this general framework, a historical approach to the issue allows an appreciation of changes in the role of Cuban youth with regard to society as a whole changes shaped both by the transformations in the country's economic and social situation and by the age group's internal dynamics. During the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s these transformations and internal changes took place with unprecedented speed. The resources obtained through the expropriation first of foreign enterprises and later of the national bourgeoisie, together with aid from the socialist camp, allowed for accelerated growth of investment that generated a significant increase and diversification in employment. The rate of investment rose to more than 30