Global Urban Observatory Section

Demography

Among notable features of population in the region, there are high levels of urbanization on a low population growth rate. The projection shows that if this trend continues, the population will be 690 million in 2025 compared to 477 million in 1995. Regional trends are much influenced by Brazil and Mexico as most populous countries: Brazil has 34% of the region’s total population, 477 million in 1995, and Mexico has 19% of it, together it consists more than half the region’s rural and urban population.

In Latin America and the Caribbean: 73% of its population were living in urban areas in 1995, the level of urbanization is similar to that of Europe. Although urban population growth rate for the region is relatively low, this urbanization trend will continue in all countries and the urban population in the region will amount to 82 % of the total population in 2025. There is considerable diversity between countries in urban population growth rate. Some countries where urbanization level is already over 80%, for instance Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and Chile, will have low urban population growth rate. In contrast, many countries where urbanization level is still below 60% will have relatively high urban population growth rate. The two most populated countries, Brazil and Mexico, are between these two categories.

Although the low population growth-rate for the region, household number growth rate, is about twice as higher as that of the world’s developing countries’ average. Increments to the number of households indicate the housing demand. The projection shows approximately 85.8 million households will be increased in the first quarter of the next century. Especially in Brazil, the household increment during this term will be 47.6 million, which is more than half of all increment in the region. Generally the more nuclear families are, the more households are. In fact household average size is 3.5 in Brazil whereas 5.4 in Mexico.

The life expectancy for the region has been higher than that for the other regions for the last decade. Some countries, like Cuba or Costa Rica have among the world's highest life expectancy while many other countries' life expectancy is above 70 years.

The region is not an exception to the trend of aging society and the ratio of over 65 aged population will increase in all countries in the region. But the level of aging for the region is relatively low, only about 5% in 1995 and will be still less than 10% in 2025, which is lower than the current Western Europe's level. Problems relevant to aging will not become serious before 2025 in most countries in the region. Exceptionally in some countries like Cuba or Barbados, the ratio of aged people will increase up to 15%, the Western Europe's level, in 2025.

Housing & Social Indicators

Concerning ratio of housing unit with piped water or toilet, the ratios are above 60% in more than half countries whose data are available. It should be noticed that the data for these topics are not available for many countries and the very low figures are also reported.

Data on the population with access to safe water or sanitation service are more available. According to the data, over 60% of people can access to safe water in many countries, but in some countries like Haiti or Bolivia, the access is generally difficult. The ratio of population with access to sanitation varies from 20% up to 100% by country.

For the whole region, 86% of people in the urban areas can access to safe water, and 71% of the people in the urban areas can access to sanitation service. These figure s are similar to the average of developing countries, but the absolute numbers of people with access to these two facilities are presumed to be higher than the rest of the developing areas because of high urban population in this area.

There are some countries where the ratio of household owner occupants is very high, for instance Honduras 80%, Mexico 78%, Venezuela 77%. It is presumed that houses for rent will be in short supply in the near future as the increment of the urban population.

Enrolment ratio at first level in the region has been almost 100% and not less than half have proceeded to second level school since decades ago. The notable aspect for the region is that more girls proceed to second level than boys, which is in reverse order in many developing countries. In 1995, 59.3% of girls proceeded to second level as against 53.9% of boys.

Although the enrolment ratio is the average of the developing countries, illiteracy rate is less than 10% in many countries in the region except Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua. For the region illiteracy rate is 13.4% in 1995, which is about one third of Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia.

Space, Infrastructure & Economic Indicators

Since just three countries, Brazil which occupies 42% of the total land area, Argentina and Mexico, have 65% of the region's total land area, land use statistics for the region are much influenced by these three countries. Land use can be illustrated by three regions, namely the Caribbean, Central America and South America. In South America, 48% of the land is covered by forest and 6% is allotted for arable land or land under permanent crops. By contrast, in the Caribbean, forest covers only 19% and 27% of land is used for arable or permanent crops.

Many Caribbean countries can be characterized by very high population density. Population density of Barbados amounts to 6070 per 1000ha and in many other Caribbean countries the densities are over 2000 per 1000ha. In consideration of both the huge forest, the pampas and the high urbanization level, the population densities in big cities seem to be relatively high even in the other countries.

Some of the Caribbean countries have dense road network. Other countries' road networks are also far denser than most developing countries in the other regions.

The numbers of telephones per 100 habitants have increased at least 1.5 times in most countries from 1985 to 1995. During this decade telephone have diffused in most countries in the region. Some countries have telephones as many as 30 telephones per 100 habitants while in more than half countries in the region, it is 10 per 100 habitants.

After the so-called 'lost decade', which is the depression during the last part of 1970s and the early 1980s, GDP per capita have increased in most countries in the region, except few countries like Suriname, from 1985 to 1995. In 1995 Bahamas marks above 10000US$ and Barbados and Argentina mark above 6000US$. The many other countries range between 4500 and 1000US$, which is higher than most developing countries in the other regions.

For the region, it is notable that the ratio of female economic active population is lower by about 5% than world average in 1995. The low figures of populated countries, 35% in Brazil and 33% in Mexico, bring the regional total down while more than half countries marks less than world average. But the trend shows that the ratio of female has been increased by about 7% during a decade since 1985.
 

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