Students from the Ricardo Flores Magón school study in their classroom in Santa María de Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico.MARCO UGARTE (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
In 15 years, there will be the same number of Europeans as Latin Americans and by 2039, there will be more citizens of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Being a region, broadly speaking, more culturally homogeneous than Europe, this could make it an attractive market in the medium term if it takes advantage of its demographic peak with education and training for formal work.
According to data from the United Nations (UN), with 729 million inhabitants, Latin America will surpass Europe in 2039, a year in which it is estimated that the old continent will have 724 million.
Both regions are on the way to a smaller population, with fertility rates converging slightly above two children per woman or pregnant person.
But Latin America is approaching a peak that must be taken advantage of if governments work to offer better socioeconomic conditions, agree several experts consulted by EL PAÍS.
“Latin America is a long way from having the global influence that Europe has,” says Ernesto Canales, data analyst and co-founder of the independent firm Latinometrics, “but this is an important metric that the region is reaching.”
As a market, this is a region that mostly shares two official languages, Spanish and Portuguese, that has similar cultures and fewer religious tensions than the old continent or even the United States.
This paints it as an attractive market, although it also needs greater purchasing power for the general population.
With some exceptions, the countries of the region register levels of informality between 50% and 60%, due not only to the inability of the private sector to absorb the population, but also to educational levels.
“This greater proportion of the population that can work, if it is not used well, if there are no increases in people's human capital, training for work, skills, abilities, and knowledge, is a plus that is not going to translate into high levels of productivity as would be expected for economic growth,” says Alejandro Barrera, an economist and doctor in demography, who is a professor at the University of Manizales, Colombia.
“The implications will be greater pressure on the social security and pension systems, clearly due to the low levels of productivity there would be low income.
Fifty years from now we are going to have a pressure from an aging population”, adds the academic.
One of the factors of production is population, explains Barrera.
The larger the working-age population, the higher the productivity levels can be expected, but that is not the only variable.
“It is necessary for the labor markets to be efficient, for the gender, youth, participation, job occupation and even informality gaps to be resolved to take advantage of this demographic dividend with much more force.
A trained population with good levels of human capital is needed so that the productive fabrics can take full advantage of it”, emphasizes the specialist.
Lower fertility rate
"There is a perception in Latin America that we are a region that reproduces rapidly and although it has done so and we are going to surpass Europe very soon, our fertility rate is also dropping to two children per woman," says Canales, from Latinometrics.
“Part of what explains this is that Latin America is a highly urbanized region, compared to Europe.
It may sound contradictory, we are saying that we are going to surpass Europe soon, but at the same time we are approaching its lowest fertility rate”, says the analyst.
This has implications for social security policies, since the pension and health systems fall on the shoulders of the young population while the elderly population is increasing, driven in large part by advances in medicine.
Europe has relied on migration to fill these gaps.
Many of these migrants, especially in the case of Spain, are Latin American.
"Some authors refer to this as a third demographic transition and population turnover," says Barrera.
"In the United States, for example, young Latin Americans arrive compared to the native Latin American who is already an elderly person."
Latin America has historically not been attractive to this type of migrant, so there is concern about the cost that the State will represent to support aging populations.
Latin America "can become attractive due to its size, but we must be very careful that we are, as a region, a truly vulnerable social fabric, where the patterns of inequality that begin to be experienced from the labor market and are translated to the different contexts of society, are much more evident than the American or European case”, says Barrera.
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