Population Aging : Is Latin America Ready?
The past half-century has seen enormous changes in the demographic makeup of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In the 1950s, LAC had a small population of about 160 million people, less than today's population of Brazil. Two-thirds of Lat...
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| Format: | Publication |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank
2012
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| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000356161_20110107011214 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2542 |
| Summary: | The past half-century has seen enormous
changes in the demographic makeup of Latin America and the
Caribbean (LAC). In the 1950s, LAC had a small population of
about 160 million people, less than today's population
of Brazil. Two-thirds of Latin Americans lived in rural
areas. Families were large and women had one of the highest
fertility rates in the world, low levels of education, and
few opportunities for work outside the household.
Investments in health and education reached only a small
fraction of the children, many of whom died before reaching
age five. Since then, the size of the LAC population has
tripled and the mostly rural population has been transformed
into a largely urban population. There have been steep
reductions in child mortality, and investments in health and
education have increased, today reaching a majority of
children. Fertility has been more than halved and the
opportunities for women in education and for work outside
the household have improved significantly. Life expectancy
has grown by 22 years. Less obvious to the casual observer,
but of significance for policy makers, a population with a
large fraction of dependent children has evolved into a
population with fewer dependents and a very large proportion
of working-age adults. This overview seeks to introduce the
reader to three groups of issues related to population aging
in LAC. First is a group of issues related to the support of
the aging and poverty in the life cycle. Second is the
question of the health transition. Third is an understanding
of the fiscal pressures that are likely to accompany
population aging and to disentangle the role of demography
from the role of policy in that process. |
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