Latin America’s Baby Bust Is Arriving Early
The region’s fertility rates are falling faster than expected, forcing governments to rethink healthcare, education and pension policies.
Demographers can only dream.
Photographer: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocketLatin America’s demographic time bomb keeps ticking.
Data published in the past few weeks confirm the quick decline in the region’s fertility levels, with the number of births in Brazil falling to the lowest in close to 50 years. In Argentina, the number of newborns has almost halved in just a decade, with kindergartens struggling to find pupils. In 2024, Uruguay had more deaths than births for the fourth consecutive year. Even Bolivia, a country of traditionally large families, is about to fall below the 2.1 children-per-woman threshold necessary to keep its population constant.