Population Aging: Is Latin America Ready?
Figure 1.2
7
Life Expectancy at Birth and Total Fertility Rate in LAC, 2005–10
4.4 Guatemala
total fertility rate (number of births per woman)
3.9 Haiti
Bolivia
3.4
Honduras Paraguay
2.9
Nicaragua Peru Ecuador Venezuela, R.B. de Colombia Panama El Salvador Jamaica Argentina Mexico Costa Rica Uruguay Brazil Chile
Dominican Republic 2.4
1.9
Cuba
1.4 60
62
64
66
68
70
72
74
76
78
80
life expectancy (years) Source: UN Population Prospects Report 2008. Note: Dotted lines represent the unweighted mean.
to improved control over infectious, parasitic, and respiratory diseases. During the last 60 years, female life expectancy has increased from being three years higher to six years higher than for males. There is great variation in life expectancy across LAC countries, ranging from 60 years in Haiti and 66 in Bolivia to more than 78 in Chile, Costa Rica, and Cuba. While all indications suggest that significant gaps in life expectancy between the poor and the nonpoor exist within LAC populations, we have not been able to find estimates of the magnitude of this important gap. Despite the impressive declines in mortality, the strongest transformational force in LAC’s demography has been the decline in fertility. Over the last 60 years, the total fertility rate has fallen from 5.9 children per woman during 1950–55 to 2.4 children per woman in 2005–10, and the average fertility over the next four decades is expected to hover around the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. Three Caribbean countries and seven mainland countries are already at or below the replacement level. The fertility rate is one child or more above the replacement level in only five countries and falling rapidly. In the 30 years between 1960 and 1990, fertility levels in LAC decreased from among the world’s highest to considerably below the global average.