Latin America’s Fertility Decline is Accelerating. No One’s Certain Why.
By
Paul Constance
The unexpected trend, if it continues, may affect politics and budgets for years to come.
Among demographers, 2023 will be remembered as the year Brazil “shrank” by almost 5 million people. A new census put the country’s population at 203 million people—well below the 208 million previously estimated by Brazil’s national statistics institute, and even further from the 216 million calculated by the United Nations. Those missing people didn’t vanish or emigrate—they were never born. The 2022 census, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, showed that Brazil’s population grew during the 2010s by just 0.52% per year—half the rate seen throughout the 2000s, and...
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