CARACAS, Oct 2 (IPS) – Because of modernization and financial and workforce development, giant households are a factor of the previous in Latin America and the Caribbean. Now, the area faces an getting old inhabitants and immigration flows.
Within the area, “fertility charges have fallen from 5.8 youngsters per lady in 1950 to 1.8 youngsters in 2024. The biggest decline in fertility is between 1950 and 2024 (-68.4% globally, -52.6% globally)” %),” stated Simone Cecchini, director of the Latin Institute. The Demographic Heart of the US and the Caribbean, Santiago, Chile, informed worldwide information companies.
“Enhancements in instructional attainment, residing circumstances, urbanization, ladies’s empowerment and their integration into the labor market contribute to lowering the variety of youngsters,” stated Cecchini, whose heart is a part of the Financial Fee for Latin America and the Caribbean . (ECLAC).
Martha Marcondes, an educator from the Brazilian metropolis of São Paulo, informed IPS about modifications within the variety of youngsters in her household, which replicate regional habits.
“My great-grandmother had 14 youngsters and I devoted my life to them; my grandmother thought otherwise and solely gave delivery to 4; my mom gave delivery to 3, and on her fourth being pregnant, she selected to have an abortion ,” she defined.
Marcondes solely has one daughter as a result of “we appreciated the concept of having a second baby, however my husband and I sat down and determined to not have any extra youngsters. My daughter is 22 years outdated, finding out worldwide relations and specializing in her profession.” and touring and never planning to have youngsters”.
Most of her daughter’s classmates are additionally solely youngsters, or have at most one sibling. “Having fewer youngsters is a method of offering a greater life for kids,” Marcondes stated.
{Couples} like Tamara and Hector – who did not need their final names used – agree. She is a pastry chef within the metropolis of Guyana in southeastern Venezuela. He’s a firefighter and has a 10-year-old daughter.
“We had simply sufficient cash to pay for college and assist ourselves, however no home or automobile. It is more and more troublesome to pay charges in Venezuela and the earnings may be very low, so just a few years in the past I informed Hector: have no extra youngsters,” she informed IPS from her hometown.
Demographer Anica Fratez, head of the Division of Inhabitants Research on the Catholic College of Andres Bello in Caracas, confirmed to the Worldwide Press Company that “empirical analyzes of disaster international locations present that the poverty in these international locations encourages individuals to Keep away from childbirth.
Cecchini famous, “As individuals change into extra educated and wealthier, they select to have fewer youngsters. This alternative is made attainable by better entry to sexual and reproductive well being and the usage of trendy contraceptives , and trendy contraceptives additionally scale back teen fertility charges.”
She famous that whereas the area’s adolescent fertility price (50.5 births per 1,000 ladies aged 15-19 in 2024) has declined from current instances (73.1 births in 2010), it stays effectively above the worldwide common (40.7). .
Growing old and the financial system
The decline in fertility charges has led to drastic modifications within the age construction of the inhabitants, with the proportion of youngsters falling sharply and the proportion of the aged steadily rising.
In response to ECLAC knowledge for 20 Latin American international locations, common household dimension can also be reducing, from 4.3 individuals in 2000 to three.4 individuals in 2022, whereas life expectancy is rising.
In 1950, the typical life expectancy at delivery for women and men in Latin America and the Caribbean was solely 49 years, and by 2024 it had reached 76 years.
Resulting from declining fertility charges and rising life expectancy, by 2024, Latin America and the Caribbean can have 95 million individuals aged 60 and over, accounting for 14.2% of the whole inhabitants. In 2030, there will probably be 114 million individuals, accounting for 16.6% of the whole inhabitants.
Particularly, the inhabitants aged 80 and over is predicted to develop strongly, from 12.5 million in 2024 to 16.3 million in 2030.
Cecchini believes that the getting old inhabitants and shrinking household sizes are reshaping economies and societies, creating challenges and alternatives.
Growing old, she stated, “poses challenges for public insurance policies on social safety, well being, care, and the labor market. Common protection of social safety or well being care has nonetheless not been achieved,” and the rise within the aged inhabitants has dramatically elevated the protection of social safety and well being care.
It additionally will increase the necessity for care, particularly long-term care. Cecchini careworn that “public coverage measures are additionally wanted on this space” as the standard mannequin of care primarily based on ladies’s unpaid work within the prolonged household is now not sustainable.
However when it comes to alternatives, there’s a rising demand for services among the many aged, which might carry advantages to the market.
Specialists say the “silver financial system” that focuses on the wants of the aged brings alternatives in areas resembling tourism, leisure, telemedicine, info and communications know-how, good residence methods, well being care and residential care.
“The getting old inhabitants will create new job alternatives in these areas, notably in well being and care,” she stated.
The Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs) adopted within the United Nations 2030 Agenda don’t set a fertility goal, however there are advantages from fertility targets, resembling lowering poverty by bringing extra individuals into the labor drive and lowering dependencies .
Demographic dividend and immigration
Inhabitants getting old and declining fertility have implications for the demographic dividend, financial development, and the window of alternative for poverty discount as a result of the most efficient age teams (15 to 64 years) have increased charges of inhabitants development relative to the dependent inhabitants.
In response to the World Financial institution, this phase makes up a mean of 68% of the area’s complete inhabitants, with some international locations within the English-speaking Caribbean, Brazil and Colombia, above common, and others beneath common, resembling Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. .
The foreseeable period of this dividend varies extensively throughout the area—longest in Bolivia and shortest in Uruguay—as a result of it is dependent upon the velocity of the getting old course of, which is pushed by declining mortality, declining fertility, and migration processes determined.
“However we should at all times do not forget that the demographic dividend is simply a possibility, which have to be exploited by applicable public insurance policies, resembling investing within the human capabilities of younger individuals and selling gender equality within the labor market,” Cecchini careworn.
Migration has had a major influence on international locations resembling Cuba and Venezuela, with greater than 800,000 individuals leaving Cuba prior to now two years and greater than 7 million nationals leaving Venezuela prior to now decade.
“In international locations like Venezuela, declining fertility charges mixed with migration processes result in the lack of the demographic dividend and an getting old inhabitants,” Frates stated.
She careworn that this course of takes place “in a rustic the place getting old has not been a precedence in public coverage. One instance is that the pensions acquired by the aged are usually not even sufficient to satisfy some wants and public well being may be very scarce”.
Pensions in Venezuela are tied to the minimal wage, which is lower than 4 {dollars} a month, though some teams of pensioners sometimes obtain bonuses of some {dollars} extra.
“All the burden falls on households whose buildings have been remodeled,” stated Frates, “as a result of greater than one million households (in Venezuela there are simply over six million households) have skilled the migration of a few of their members and change into transnational household.
Whether or not attributable to this dispersion, declining fertility, advances in modernization or getting old, this prolonged household of Latin American life and conventional options is now the stuff of museum collections.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedAuthentic supply: Inter Press Service
