Latin America's demographic time bomb keeps ticking

Latin America’s baby bust is arriving early.

- Juan Pablo Spinetto, Tribune News Service

Data published in the past few weeks confirm the quick decline in the region's fertility levels, with the number of births in Brazil falling to the lowest in close to 50 years. In Argentina, the number of newborns has almost halved in just a decade, with kindergartens struggling to find pupils. In 2024, Uruguay had more deaths than births for the fourth consecutive year. Even Bolivia, a country of traditionally large families, is about to fall below the 2.1 children-per-woman threshold necessary to keep its population constant. Whether it's Chile, Mexico or the Dominican Republic, you'll find a similar trend of accelerated demographic changes driving the inexorable aging of society. According to a report by the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the region's total population was estimated at 663 million persons last year, 3.88 below the projections presented in 2000.