Chile faces sharp decline in birthrate as more women opt out of motherhood: Video

The National Statistics Institute (INE) reports that the average number of children per woman is now 1.17, far below the 2.1 needed to maintain the population, placing Chile among the countries with the lowest birth rates globally.

Isidora Romero, a 25-year-old banking executive, shared her decision to remain child-free with the AFP saying, "The world doesn't need another human being, a biological child of mine, it doesn't need one. There are millions of people, there is overpopulation, there is water shortage, there is pollution." As a result, Romero opted for sterilisation, choosing instead to focus on fostering animals.

Another woman, Martina Yopo, who is a researcher at the Sociological Institute of the Catholic University of Chile, made a comparative remark about the situation over the year. “In Chile, there is a deep and very drastic decline in the birth rate. So we think that in the 60s in Chile, women had practically six children on average. Today, according to updated figures from the National Institute of Statistics, that number is 1.17 children per woman, which puts us at a very low population replacement rate and gives us not only one of the lowest fertility rates in Latin America,” said Yopo.

Yopo also noted that not all women are choosing to forgo motherhood voluntarily. "Many women in Chile want to have children or more children but feel society doesn’t provide the conditions to raise them with dignity."

Despite hopes that immigration might boost population numbers, the INE predicts that Chile’s birthrate will continue to decline in the coming years.