The lack of desire is far from being the only reason for low fertility, a widespread multi-causal phenomenon in the region of which Uruguay is a historical champion.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the nation of 3.5 million people fell below the threshold of 2.1 children per woman that demographers consider the “generational replacement rate,” that is, the magic number that allows a population to is maintained without decreasing its volume.
In the last five years, the drop is more extraordinary. In gross numbers, it went from almost 49,000 births in 2015 to less than 36,000 in 2020.
This translates into an average of 1.4 children per woman: the lowest fertility rate in Uruguayan history, far from replacement and close to “extinction” fantasy.
It is also possibly the lowest in the region, although several Latin American countries do not have updated data to 2020. Cuba, another nation with a traditional low fertility, reached 1.57 children per woman in 2019, according to the latest official figures.
“We must avoid catastrophic scenarios. The idea that we are going to end up with a depopulated or disappearing country is not going to happen,” the head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) office in Uruguay, Fernando Filgueira, told AFP. .
According to the sociologist, the country’s historical low birth rate is explained by an early urbanization process, migrants with low fertility rates and the absence of a strong indigenous population.
The separation of Church and State also facilitated family planning and the early incorporation of women into the world of education and the labor market, which favored the decrease in births.
To this is added today the postponement of motherhood, which usually leads to the decision to have only one child or even fertility problems.
But the sharp drop that has occurred since 2015 is a mirror of another crucial drop: that of teenage motherhood.
“52% of the explanation for the decline in the last five years, from 1.9 to 1.4 children per woman,” is explained by the decline in mothers aged 15 to 24 due to public policies for the prevention of adolescent pregnancy, says the demographer Ignacio Pardo, researcher at the University of the Republic.
Risel Suárez, director of the Pereira Rossell Women’s Hospital, a maternity reference center in Uruguay, explains that “the most convincing hypothesis” is that this fall is due to subdermal contraceptive implants offered by the State to young women since 2014.
But it also points to sex education and a paradigm shift that makes adolescents come to the gynecological office accompanied by their mothers. “It is something that has become very noticeable at a clinical level in the last decade,” he says.
While many of the causes of low fertility are good news, staying at levels of 1.4 children per woman can lead to long-term problems.
An inevitable consequence is the aging of the population, which puts pressure on the health and social security systems.
Experts consider that it should be aimed at families to distribute care so that they do not fall mainly on women since the State financially supports the upbringing, in a country with a high cost of living.
Fertility decline is a trend in Latin America, which mimics a process established in Europe and parts of Asia. South Korea reached 0.9 children per woman in 2019, according to data collected by the World Bank.
Spain (1.2) and Italy (1.3) have the lowest fertility rates among European countries and Chile (1.6) and Costa Rica (1.7) in Latin America, where Bolivia appears at the other extreme with 2 , 7 children per woman.
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