Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the regions most demographically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, reveals the 2022 Demographic Observatory of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), an annual publication of the organization that in its new edition highlights the urgency of strengthening national statistical systems and calculating good quality population estimates and projections for the diagnosis and planning of public policies.
The Demographic Observatory 2022: Demographic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic presents population estimates and projections prepared by the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Center (CELADE)-Population Division of ECLAC in conjunction with the Population Division of the United Nations , work that is also complemented with technical advice to the National Statistics Institutes of the countries of the region in the elaboration of their own population estimates and projections.
The publication, which has more than three decades of experience, was presented at a virtual event inaugurated by José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, and Florbela Fernandes, Deputy Regional Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). .
The document was presented by Simone Cecchini, Director of CELADE – Population Division of ECLAC, and commented on by Jorge Bravo, Head of Population and Development Policies of the United Nations Population Division; Joice Melo Vieira, President of the Latin American Population Association (ALAP) and Sandra Quijada Javer, National Director of the National Statistics Institute (INE) of Chile.
“In order to elaborate public policies that contribute to the transformation of the development model with a focus on production, inclusion and sustainability, it is important to know not only how many we will be, but also characteristics such as sex, age, geographic location, ethnicity, etc. racial, among others”, affirmed José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, during the presentation of the document.
He stressed that, despite the adversities of the pandemic, several countries in the region have managed to prepare their vital statistics of deaths and births in a timely manner, which have made it possible to estimate the impact of the pandemic on mortality and its consequences for the dynamics of the population. However, not all countries had this capacity, and the information available has some challenges in relation to its completeness and precision, warned the highest representative of ECLAC.
“This shows the need to continue working to improve vital statistics at the national and subnational levels, so that the authorities of the countries can make decisions based on timely and quality information. We need increasingly precise and disaggregated information, so it is essential to invest in vital statistics, the importance of which has been highlighted by the pandemic”, he expressed.
Florbela Fernandes, Deputy Regional Director of UNFPA, meanwhile, stressed that the full exercise of human rights entails not leaving anyone behind and recalled that there are no reasons for gender, age, race, ethnicity, immigration status, sexual orientation or disability. that can be considered obstacles to the full guarantee and exercise of the rights of all people.
“Today that the population has reached 8 billion inhabitants, it is important to emphasize that people are the solution, not the problem. And with 8 billion, we see 8 billion opportunities and for this reason we advocate measuring and anticipating demographic changes to be better prepared for the consequences that arise, ”he stressed.
The publication indicates that the population of Latin America and the Caribbean went from 168.3 million inhabitants in 1950 to 660.3 million people in 2022, a figure that represents 8.3% of the world population.
The decreasing growth of the population, mainly as a result of the decrease in fertility, will lead the region to reach its maximum population in the year 2056, with a total of 751.9 million people.
The publication points out that in the current decade a decrease in the number of inhabitants under 30 years of age and a positive growth of the adult population in the region are projected, especially those over 50 years of age. If the assumptions of the population projections are met, towards the end of this century the only population group that will continue to increase at the regional level are people aged 80 and over.
The analysis confirms that the region lost 2.9 years of life expectancy at birth between 2019 and 2021, going from 75.1 years in 2019 to 72.2 years in 2021, making Latin America and the Caribbean the region of the world that lost the most years of life expectancy as a result of the pandemic. The fall between 2019 and 2021 was greater in Central America (-3.6 years). Projections indicate that in 2022 the recovery of the lost years of life expectancy will begin.
“The loss of years of life in 2020 and 2021 is greater than in any other period in the recent history of the region. The projections foresee a recovery in 2022, which will have different rhythms in the countries due to the differences in the vaccination process and the measures taken to combat the pandemic. However, life expectancy at birth will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2025,” the document states.
Projections indicate that the region’s total fertility rate (TFR) will continue to decline, reaching 1.68 children per woman in 2100 with an increase in the average age of fertility. The average age of fertility in the region registered a downward trend between 1950 and 2000. Starting in 2013, it began to rise and is currently 27.6 years, which indicates that low fertility is accompanied by a greater number of women who have children at older ages.
Regarding the adolescent fertility rate, on average the rate of decline has increased in the region since 2010, and this has gone from 73.1 children per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 19 in 2010, to 52.1 in 2022. However, despite the reduction observed in the last decade, Latin America and the Caribbean still has one of the highest adolescent fertility rates in the world, only below the estimated and projected rates for Africa. In 2022, 9 countries in the region are among the 60 countries with the highest adolescent fertility rate in the world.
The Demographic Observatory 2022 also analyzes the dynamics of intraregional migration and reveals that the flow of Venezuelan migrants to countries in the region such as Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Brazil is unprecedented, in terms of intensity, in the recent history of the Americas. Latin and the Caribbean. He points out that the movement of people from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela began around 2016, when 283,300 people left the country, and reached its maximum in 2018, when that country lost about 1.4 million inhabitants due to migration. However, with the closure of borders after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, this movement has been reduced and projections point to a gradual return movement starting in 2022.
Finally, the document highlights that the pandemic has highlighted the need for robust and timely systems for collecting and disseminating population data, broken down at least at the subnational level by age, sex, and cause of death. Countries that have systems for the rapid compilation and processing of quality information have had better tools to monitor the advance or decline of the coronavirus and better possibilities to define their action plans.
