In Havana, nearly 26% of Cubans were aged 60 or older by end-2024, while the population fell to 9.7 million after about 1.5 million people left in five years.
Retirees living on pensions often worth under $10 a month are struggling with reduced subsidised rations, loneliness and shortages, increasingly relying on church meals and informal street sales to survive.
The policy marks a notable shift from Cuba's long state-controlled welfare model as the crisis deepens after a US oil embargo and the emigration of younger Cubans leaves more elderly people unsupported.
With U.S. sanctions crippling Cuba, is international humanitarian aid enough to prevent a catastrophe for its elderly?
As Cuba opens elder care to private business, can capitalism save the generation that built its socialist state?