Uruguay: Population declined, and 1 million fewer inhabitants expected by 2100

The United Nations reported that Uruguay’s population decreased. For the first time since records have been kept, fewer people are living in the country than in the previous year.

If in 2020, when the pandemic had not yet made a dent, there were 3,429,084 inhabitants, in 2021, with the health emergency at its peak, there were 2,828 fewer people. And in 2022, the decline will continue: 3,469 fewer than the previous year.

Demographers explain that it was an inevitable process. The few births in the country and a migratory balance that tends to zero -because those who arrive are compensated by those who leave- mean that, sooner or later, the Uruguayan population will fall.

The covid-19 pandemic accelerated this process which, according to projections just updated by the United Nations, will cause Uruguay’s population to fall by almost one million inhabitants by the end of this century (or, in other words, it will fall to levels not seen since 1956).

“Population projections are not an exact science, but are based on existing data and use the most reasonable hypotheses,” explained demographer Juan José Calvo, who explained that the 2023 population census “may shed more light on this phenomenon.”

That is because there are two unknowns about the Uruguayan population that demographers have not been able to unravel: “we have to wait a few years to know if the recent drop in fertility is a real decline or if it is that the age at which children are born has been lowered”. And on the other hand, “we have to see how international migration behaves”.

Calvo thinks the 2023 census will confirm that Uruguayans are fewer than projected. He worked on the previous census and explained that “the drop in births was so sharp, especially among teenagers, that it was surprising. Nobody could foresee it”. Nor could anyone have estimated “the massive migration of Venezuelans that turned that country into one of the main modern exoduses”.

But just as new immigrants arrived in the country, there were Uruguayans who left. “When there is a crisis in Uruguay, the population tends to migrate with great speed, to the point that sometimes they anticipate the crisis itself,” he says.

COVID-19 EFFECTS

Just as the war of the Triple Alliance reduced the Paraguayan population by half (although there are calculations that estimate even greater damage), or the atomic bomb in Hiroshima killed in an instant more than a quarter of the inhabitants of that city, the covid-19 pandemic left its demographic wound. Unlike in Paraguay at the end of 1864 or in Japan in 1945, experts believe the population will recover in the short term.

“With covid-19, there was an excess of deaths in a specific period, and it was focused on a specific population (mainly older adults), so the impact is short term, it does not affect reproduction, and it recovers immediately,” said demographer Calvo, who has just returned from Chile where the regional population congress was held.

This scar that does not last over time has the form of a small hole in the line that traces the growth of life expectancy at birth. Thanks to improved living conditions – especially access to drinking water and antibiotics – humanity has been increasing its life expectancy.

In Uruguay, the pandemic meant a loss of three years of life expectancy, as if life expectancy had fallen to 2003 levels, but the United Nations estimates “it soon recovers and returns to normal”.

Uruguayan men lost more life expectancy than women. While women lost 2.65 years, men lost 3.03 years. And this widens the historical gap even more: men always live a little less, although the United Nations projects that the distance will gradually shorten.

“The loss of three years of life expectancy at birth is a lot, and it’s another way of looking at the enormous mortality brought on by the pandemic, but it’s a heavy blow with little long-term impact,” Calvo said.

According to Simone Cecchini, director of ECLAC’s population division, during the pandemic, “Latin America and the Caribbean lost 2.9 years of life expectancy at birth compared to 2019.” That means the region “fell back 18 years (although) it is estimated that life expectancy will rise again in the future”.

Uruguay had a more significant decline in life expectancy at birth than Argentina (1.9 years), Brazil (2.5), or Chile (1.4). It was even more severe than the world average (1.75). But, at the same time, it was lower than in Peru (3.8), Colombia (4.0), and Ecuador (3.6).

The statistician and demographer Gonzalo De Armas calculated that 77,795 potential years of life were lost last year in Uruguay due to deaths caused by covid-19. In other words, people who died of this infection at an age lower than their remaining life expectancy according to their age.

The good news for Uruguay is that, according to official projections, life expectancy at birth is expected to recover by 2023, and this will partly lead to an increasingly older society.

A COUNTRY OF OLD PEOPLE?

When Uruguayans went out to celebrate the Maracanazo in 1950, half of the population was under 27 years old. Now – whether Uruguayans go out to celebrate the World Cup in Qatar or not – half of the inhabitants are over 35 years old. And in 2100, half will be over 53.

“Population aging is good news: we are getting older because we are improving our living conditions, we are living longer, with more development, more health and families are deciding how many children they want to have and when,” explained demographer Calvo.

But as positive as the phenomenon is, it is not without its challenges. From an economist’s point of view, technicians say that aging adds stress to the retirement and pension system (less working age population), burden to the health system (older people have higher expenses for medicines and treatments), and fatigue to the care system (more dependents).

It also transforms the family and the city. “We must learn to coexist among many generations, to respect children and older adults,” said Calvo, who warned, “this implies changes in urban conditioning, transportation, and housing construction.

In Uruguay, this process is so accelerated – in addition to the situation of a deficit pension system and a social security reform process that is under discussion – that it has led to a convergence of pro-natalist or mother-friendly initiatives in Parliament.

The academy, however, disagrees. In this regard, Calvo stated: “Focusing on the birth rate is ineffective. International experience shows that, however desirable and positive, pro-natalist measures do not move the fertility needle.

Extending paternal and maternal leave is an excellent idea and should be done. So is the housing subsidy for young couples. But we must know that this is so people can better exercise their reproductive rights and not because it moves the needle of the birth rate”.

Calvo said, “nationalist and sometimes xenophobic movements are reviving demographic goals that have become obsolete. The right would be for people to be able to have the number of children they want to have, and not to try to make women mere reproductive objects and return to being locked up in their homes to take care of their children.”

Those same movements, he added, are the ones that defend that “we must preserve the oriental DNA is racist and xenophobic, as if there was an Uruguayan DNA that was better than the rest”.

For the demographer, instead, we should follow the model of countries like “Canada, Australia, or New Zealand in which migration occurs in an orderly, legal, safe way, respecting the migrant.

The Canadian model has robust estimates of the needs to be covered in the labor market, which jobs or professions require migrant labor because there are none in the country. So it facilitates the arrival of those profiles. People register as if they were applying to immigrate”.

At the same time, pedagogues insist that this population aging accelerates the need for an educational reform in Uruguay: to make each person more productive in their working stage.

Population aging is underway, and so is the debate.

With information from El Observador