Republic of Cuba
      (1940's to the 1950's)

Social Class and Structure

 

Picture
http://brownsville-texas.olx.com/3-pesos-banknote-cuba-uncirculate-7-usd
The official currency of Cuba is the peso and the main language spoken there is Spanish.

Though the majority of people there speak Spanish, the population is split into 51% mulatto, 37% white, 11% black, and 1% Chinese.

85% of these people were Roman Catholics prior to Fidel Castro assuming power, however there were also many Protestants, Jehovah Witnesses, Jews, and Santeria. The population of Cuba in the 1950's was only 5850,000, compared to the population in 2009 which was 11,204,180.a as well.

In 1953, almost 57 per cent of the population was urban.
More than 1/2 of the population lived in cities with more than 25, 000 people, and 1/3 lived in 4 cities of more than 100,000 people.
One-sixth of the population lived in Havana, which was the third-largest capital of the world in relation to the total number of the nation's population after London and Vienna.


In the 1950s Cuba had a large middle class (about 1/3 of the population). Only 23% of the working class was classified as skilled.
  The middle class was not flanked by powerful landowners and/or by the upper class. And there was much social mobility.

The life expectancy of Cuba was 58.8 years, where as the average for South America was only 56 years.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpG9yHzeLOE