Colombia would be one of the most aged countries in the world by 2070: the reasons | Finance | Economy

Colombia is aimed at having one of the most aging populations in the world the following decades. According to estimates of National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE)the average age of Colombians will increase 12 years of age in just three decades, a change that, in the past, was delayed up to 75 years to present themselves.

By 2070, it is projected that the Middle Ages will exceed 85 yearsrhythm that would even exceed the Japanone of the most referenced countries in terms of population aging.

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The causes of this phenomenon are not new or simple. One of the most preponderant factors in The increasingly progressive fall in the birth rate in the countrythat is, the average of the number of children per woman born in Colombia.

Between 1965 and 1970, Colombians had, on average, 6.2 children. If the behavior of this indicator is reviewed in the decade of 2010, the figure descends drastically up to 1.83. This is, in part, to the incorporation of women into the labor market and the progressive, but still unfinished, democratization of access to planning methods, two factors that redefined the country’s socioeconomic structure.

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Likewise, the Pandemia by COVID-19 and its effects on the economy gave strength to this trend. Between 2021 and 2024, the average inflation was 8%, while housing prices grew an annual 8.6%.

These data, together with an increasingly large economic uncertainty (86%, according to fedesarrollo), influenced the decision of many women and families to have or not have children. In fact, according to the report ‘More gray hair, less cribs’, from Corficolombiana, the births in 2024 fell 13.7%, accelerating the 7.0% drop recorded in 2022.

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Under this order of ideas, the relationship between fertility uy economic development became clearer. You lie education improvement and middle class grows, opportunity costs to have children also grow and birth decreases. This was deepened by the decrease in the international migration balance, which went from 700,000 people in 2019 to less than 100,000 in 2024.

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