Country explorer: Puerto Rico
EXPERIMENTAL
2024
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Overview
Puerto Rico is a tropical, high-income island nation in the Caribbean with a small population. Its economy has been volatile in recent decades, and is based on tourism, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.
Puerto Rico has been a U.S. territory since 1898.
Economy
Puerto Rico has experienced significant economic challenges, including a declining GDP per capita that reflects wider societal issues such as high unemployment rates, distinguishing it from many high-income peers by its ongoing struggle to achieve economic stability and growth.
Demographics
Puerto Rico has experienced significant demographic shifts, characterized by a declining population, negative net migration, a decreasing fertility rate, and improvements in life expectancy, reflecting patterns of emigration and aging common to some high-income territories, but unique in its scale and impact within the region.
Basic needs
Puerto Rico has made significant progress in ensuring nearly universal access to electricity and has seen a substantial increase in access to safely managed drinking water, demonstrating patterns of improvement shared with high-income countries, despite some challenges in safely managed sanitation facilities.
Human development
In the past two decades, Puerto Rico has demonstrated consistent improvement in its literacy rate, reflecting broader trends of educational development akin to high-income countries, despite a lack of comprehensive data on other dimensions of human development.
Environment & energy
Puerto Rico has seen a gradual but continuous increase in forest area, reflecting a positive environmental trend, in sharp contrast to many regions worldwide where deforestation is ongoing.
Technology & innovation
Puerto Rico has demonstrated a substantial increase in internet usage and mobile phone subscriptions, reflective of its growing integration into the digital age, while its investment in research and development as well as scientific output, though improving, remains a challenging area, displaying a common struggle faced by many regions aiming to bolster their innovation ecosystems.
Culture & society
Puerto Rico has witnessed a decrease in its population born abroad, achieved relatively high self-reported life satisfaction levels compared to its Latin American peers, and seen a gradual increase in the age dependency ratio, indicating a societal shift towards an aging population.
Governance
In the last two decades, Puerto Rico's governance landscape has evolved significantly, yet without specific data provided on indices like rule of law, corruption perception, political civil liberties, and press freedom, it is challenging to distinctly outline its governance trajectory compared to its peers or identify unique or common trends.