Chile’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) on Wednesday published data that showed the country’s fertility rate has fallen to the lowest level in its recorded history: just 0.97 children per woman.
The INE noted that births began to decline in Chile beginning in 2010. Last year, the fertility rate was 1.06 children and, if the trend continues, it will sink to 0.89 in 2028.
INE head of demography Miguel Ojeda predicted “the number of deaths will exceed the number of births” in 2028, “beginning a period of negative population growth.”
The Chilean population is expected to peak in 2026 at 20,150,948 people, and then decline to 20,643,490 by 2035. By the middle of 2070, the national population will be down to 16,972,558.
The director of the INE, Ricardo Vicuna, noted that life expectancy has increased from 74.6 years in 1992 to 81.8 years in 2025.
By 2070, the average life expectancy will be 88.4, and 42.6 percent of the population will be over 65 – a crushing demographic shift that will make it very difficult to sustain the economy or finance social welfare programs.
“This combination of very low birth rate and high longevity has transformed the composition of the Chilean population,” he said.
Chile now has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world – lower even than red-alert demographic crisis countries like Japan. The causes are similar to those in other developed countries, notably including women choosing to forego motherhood as their opportunities for higher education and careers increased, but the demographic crunch struck with extraordinary speed in this particular Latin American nation.
“The changes around reproduction in Chilean society have been very fast and abrupt. What took decades in Europe has happened in 10 or 20 years in Chile,” Catholic University sociologist Martina Yopo told the Buenos Aires Times in late 2024.
Yopo suggested two factors driving Chile’s demographic transformation: the swift and widespread acceptance of contraceptives, and universities becoming free to attend in 2008. She also said the Chilean government has done less to reduce the cost of maternity and child care than other countries grappling with demographic decline.
Chilean men turned away from fatherhood at the same time women were delaying or avoiding motherhood. The Buenos Aires Times noted that the number of vasectomies performed in Chile increased almost tenfold between 2013 and 2023.
The United Nations published a World Fertility Report last year that found the fertility rate across all of South America has dropped below the level of 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population, a dramatic change from the 1990s, when families frequently had three or four children.
The U.N. study found that one in 10 nations worldwide have reached a “very low” fertility rate, like Chile. The United States currently has a fertility rate of 1.6 – which was Chile’s rate, almost exactly a decade ago.