Puerto Rico Lag Index

Announcements
Alejandro López Flores y Ronald G. Hernández Maldonado
20 January 2026

Author: Alejandro López Flores and Ronald G. Hernández Maldonado

Date: November 6, 2025

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Poverty must be contextualized with social variables to understand and address it effectively. The Backwardness Index for Puerto Rico is an indicator composed of five variables that comprise two dimensions: Economic Mobility and Demography. This index seeks to measure poverty beyond income thresholds, and to incorporate elements of social backwardness and relative deprivation. An exploratory factor analysis was carried out on a set of variables to validate the construction of the multidimensional deprivation model, and to retain the variables that best captured the phenomenon of deprivation. Then, the retained variables were normalized using thresholds. The thresholds were obtained with data from the Puerto Rico Community Survey (ECPR or PRCS in English) and the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS in English). The scores of the different variables were aggregated by dimension, using the arithmetic mean, and the scores resulting from the dimensions were aggregated using the geometric mean. The values of the index lie between 0 and 1 where, the higher the score, the worse the result of the phenomenon.42 municipalities showed a decrease in their index score between the periods compared. Of these 42 municipalities, 22 showed a decrease in their score greater than 5%. Likewise, there are concentrations of municipalities with high Lagging Index scores in the central-southwest and southeastern areas of Puerto Rico.

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Profile of private schools in Puerto Rico published

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Institute of Statistics publishes Creative Industries of Puerto Rico 2016

INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS PUBLISHES CREATIVE INDUSTRIES OF PUERTO RICO 2016

This is the second statistical report made on the subject and it shows that the largest number of related establishments (59%) has between 1 and 4 employees

San Juan, PR, May 17, 2018 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) released today Creative Industries in Puerto Rico 2016, which is the second publication that presents statistics on creative industries, with the purpose of supporting their development, in accordance with Law No. 173 of October 13, 2014, also known as the Law to Promote Creative Industries.

The purpose of this second report is to capture some indicators that in the long term serve as metrics of the execution of Creative Industries in the production of goods and services for the local market and their export. There is currently no consensus on the type of industries that should be classified as “creative”. However, Article 3 of Law 173-2014 defines creative industries based on the following list of industries:

  • Design (graphic, industrial, fashion and interiors)
  • Arts (music, visual and performing arts and publications)
  • Media (application development, video games, online media, digital content and multimedia)
  • Creative Services (architecture and creative education)

The published compendium presents all the statistics already available on these industries. But, in addition, statistics are presented on several additional industries that have been classified as “creative” in previous UNESCO studies, among others, and these, together with those defined by Law 173-2014, are referred to in the report as “Law 173+”:

  • other Arts (cinematography, jewelry, sewing)
  • other media (radio, television, cable, books)
  • other Creative Services (advertising, drawing)
  • Heritage (libraries, museums and historic sites)

Below are some of the publication's key findings:

1) The largest concentration of Creative Industries in the Ley 173+ group took place in establishments with 1 to 4 employees, who brought together 58.5% of them. An experience that was most strongly repeated in the sectors of Law 173, which comprised 71.7% of the establishments (County Business Patterns, CBP). In the case of 173+ sectors, those dedicated to Jewelry, followed by Computer system design and Advertising agencies (in that order) were the ones with the highest number of establishments in the sources consulted. In the specific case of Law 173, it was the establishments dedicated to System design Computer scientists and Computer Programming Services (CBP and Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, QCEW).

2) The line of number of employees by industry, for the sectors of Law 173+, followed the same pattern as the previous line, with establishments dedicated to Jewelry, Computer system design and Agencies of publicity (in that order) those who employed the largest number of employees. The second of these, Computer system design, was the one who occupied the first position under Law 173, followed by Computer Programming Services (QCEW).

3) In the analysis of number of employees by occupation The first position in the entirety of Law 173+ corresponds to Wired telecommunications service operators with 3,148 employees, followed by those dedicated to Computer system design, with 2,030 employees. For Law 173, specifically, people employed in Computer system design (2,030) and Services of computer programming (1,842) ranked first and second (QCEW).

4) In the distribution of employees by sex, the industry of the Ley 173+ group with the highest percentage of employed women was Libraries and archives (87%) and in the lower position was the Sound industry with 12%. The most even distribution by sex occurred in Advertising Industries with 50%. In the case of jobs grouped under Law 173, the jobs of Editing and dissemination of content over the internet and search services was the one with the highest percentage of female participation (62%). The jobs of Software publishing was the one with the most even distribution (42%), being those of the Sound industry, mentioned above, those with the lowest female participation (Public Use Microdata Sample of the Puerto Rico Community Survey, PRCS-PUMS).

5) For both Law 173+ and Law 173 sectors, the Average revenue by industry The highest was $118,665 for the line of Software publishing (QCEW).

6) For both Law 173+ and Law 173 sectors, the Average annual wage by occupation The highest corresponded to System software developers with $67,530 (Occupational Employment Statistics, OES).

7) In the presentation of creative establishments per inhabitant for the Ley 173+ group The median number of establishments grouped under the creative industries by municipalities It was 2 establishments per 10,000 inhabitants. San Juan had approximately 25 establishments per 10,000 inhabitants (QCEW).

8) As for the value of imports and exports of assets of the Creative Industries in the Law 173+ sectors, in 2016 there was a trade balance of -$200 million (Institute).

To view the full report you can visit: Creative-Industries-of-Puerto Rico-2016.

In this second edition of the Creative Industries in Puerto Rico report, the secondary data sources and methodologies developed in the first report continued to be used. Industrias_Creativas_en_Puerto_Rico_2014.pdf. Since most of the available sources provide data up to 2016, it was decided to title this report with that reference date.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access. The IEPR has in its inventory, accessible through https://estadisticas.pr.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through https://data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: https://www.indicadores.pr.

In addition, as the leading entity of the Puerto Rico SDC, the IEPR manages the SDC portal, where you can find the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates; the Puerto Rico Community Survey (Puerto Rico Community Survey) and official statistics on Puerto Rico's 10-year population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed through: https://censo.estadisticas.pr.

For more information you can visit our website: https://estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook accounts (https://www.facebook.com/estadisticas.pr), Twitter (https://twitter.com/estadisticaspr) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/instituto-de-estadisticas-de-puerto-rico).

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes/(787) 688-0401

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Publican los Compendios Estadísticos 2021-2022 del sector de Educación Privada

9 de diciembre de 2022:  El Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico publicó el Compendio Estadístico de Escuelas Privadas PK-12 en Puerto Rico 2021-2022, y el Compendio Estadístico de Instituciones Postsecundarias Técnico-Vocacionales en Puerto Rico 2021-2022.  Ambos compendios fueron producidos en colaboración con la Oficina de Registro y Licenciamiento de Instituciones de Educación, la cual forma parte del Departamento de Estado del Gobierno de Puerto Rico.  Estos compendios proveen información estadística importante, como lo es la matrícula, cantidad de docentes, tasa de promoción, graduación o egresados, entre otros.

Se destacan como resultados relevantes del Compendio Estadístico 2021-2022 del sector de Educación Básica (PK-12) Privada:

  • La matrícula de estudiantes aumentó de 108,178 (año escolar 2020-2021) a 109,979 (año escolar 2021-2022).
  • El 51% de los estudiantes eran del sexo masculino y el 49% del sexo femenino.
  • La cantidad de maestros y maestras aumentó de 9,554 (año escolar 2020-2021) a 9,749 (año escolar 2021-2022).
  • El 80% de la facultad eran maestras, mientras que el 20% eran maestros.
  • El costo promedio del pago mensual fluctuó entre $313 y $408.
  • De los 313 incidentes de acoso reportados, el 49.5% consistieron en acoso verbal y el 25.6% en acoso cibernético.

Asimismo, se destacan como resultados relevantes del Compendio Estadístico 2021-2022 de sector de Instituciones Postsecundarias Técnico-Vocacionales:

  • La matrícula de estudiantes aumentó de 17,700 (año académico 2020-2021) a 24,089 (año académico 2021-2022).
  • El 49% de los estudiantes eran del sexo masculino y el 51% del sexo femenino.
  • La cantidad de profesores y profesoras disminuyó de 2,791 (año escolar 2020-2021) a 2,609 (año escolar 2021-2022).
  • El 52% de la facultad eran profesoras, mientras que el 48% eran profesores.
  • El 68% de la facultad trabajaba a tiempo parcial, mientras que el 32% a tiempo completo.

“Durante la pasada década, el sistema educativo ha experimentado importantes cambios en todos los niveles.  Estos cambios no solo se reflejan en el sector público, sino también en el sector privado de prekínder a duodécimo grado y en el sector postsecundario técnico-vocacional.  Contar con información cuantitativa sobre estos cambios es primordial para, ante estos retos, tomar decisiones basadas en la evidencia, y planificar las acciones a futuro”, expresó el Dr. Orville M. Disdier.

Damaris Nolasco, directora de la Oficina de Registro y Licenciamiento de Instituciones de Educación del Departamento de Estado, expresó que, “Aunque la matrícula de estudiantes del sector privado PK-12 demostró un aumento en comparación con el año anterior 2020-2021, es importante esperar a los próximos compendios, pues, debido a la pandemia, el año 2020-2021 fue uno atípico y confirmar si esta tendencia de aumento se mantiene.  Definitivamente, es importante recopilar, producir y publicar los compendios estadísticos en colaboración con el Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico”.

Tanto el Compendio Estadístico de Escuelas Privadas PK-12 en Puerto Rico, como el Compendio Estadístico de Instituciones Postsecundarias Técnico-Vocacionales en Puerto Rico 2021-2022, se puede acceder, en cualquier momento a través de la siguiente dirección electrónica:

Compendios estadísticos sobre la educación privada no universitaria

Para preguntas técnicas sobre este informe, pueden enviar un correo electrónico a: preguntas@estadisticas.pr.

Para conocer más sobre el Instituto de Estadísticas, pueden acceder la página web: www.estadisticas.pr.gov.  En las redes sociales a través de las cuentas de Facebook (@estadisticas.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR), Instagram (@institutodeestadisticas) y LinkedIn (Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico).

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