Costa Rica has the lowest fertility rate in the Americas, according to analysis

( Spanish) — According to experts from Central American Population Center of the University of Costa Ricathis country has the lowest fertility rate in the Americas, with 1.3 children per woman, which is even lower if migrant women are excluded.

“That level of 1.3 children is called ultra-low fertility, and if one calculates this rate only for the natives of Costa Rica it is 1.1, that is, even lower,” explained demographer Luis Rosero, from said Center. .

The expert adds that the indicator is from 2021, which is based on the most recent data from the birth registry of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) organization.

On the continent, Costa Rica is followed by Canada, with 1.42 children per woman; Jamaica, with 1.44, and Chile, with 1.45. The highest rate is found in Ecuador, with 2.05 children for each woman.

What are the reasons for such a low fertility rate in Costa Rica? Is maternity renounced or postponed? Economic pressures and personal development are among the causes that various experts and many Costa Ricans cite to explain this phenomenon.

“We don’t want children”

Steven Barboza and Yolanda Gutierrez, 28 and 27-year-old business administrators, say they have already decided not to have children. They married in 2021, five years after they met, and last year Barboza had a vasectomy to sterilize himself.

He argues that if you don’t have time to dedicate to a child, it’s better not to have one.

“We really don’t want to, our main goal is our house, to keep traveling, to have our time,” says Barboza.

Gutiérrez adds that, beyond the economic cost, “there is a reason for personal growth” and that “it was not a decision lightly.”

Ángel Villalobos also responds that children represent many expenses and that he does not want to have them.

Others postpone motherhood. Sonia González says that she did so, but that it is an exception among her friends.

“The truth is that most of my friends don’t want to have children,” she tells , carrying a baby in her arms, on a tour of downtown San José, the capital of Costa Rica.

Public policy challenge

According to demographer Rosero, this combination of factors sets off an alert to promote public policies —among the most important those of gender equality— that promote maternity and reverse this trend.

“When there is gender equality, the woman does risk entering maternity or even having a second child,” she says.

The director of Pensions of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), Ubaldo Carrillo, says that the projections are a challenge for the sector and for the country’s pension regimes, due to the weight that the elderly population will have.

“The total population is not going to grow at the same speed as older adults, but older adults have a conscious, real rate of more than 8% growth each year,” he says.

The institution projects that by 2050 the elderly population will exceed 25% of the inhabitants.

According to Carrillo, older adults today represent around 13% of the total population of Costa Rica, which is almost 5.2 million inhabitants.