Draft first regional report on the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development

Chapter III
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
Republic of Venezuela (46.6%). Ecuador and Argentina also present increases in the period (of 2.2% and 1.3%,
respectively). It should be noted that in all the countries where poverty levels have risen, they have done so
most among women; broadly speaking, the demographic transition led to more women entering the labour
market, and they are the <strong>first</strong> to leave it at times of economic crisis.
The national poverty threshold indicator shows over 50% of the population of Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras
and Mexico living in households below the poverty line, while in other countries such as Brazil and Uruguay the
figures are below 10% (see figure III.2). Poverty levels are lower among people living in households in urban
areas, with Honduras and Mexico being the only countries where over 50% of the urban population is below the
poverty threshold. Rural areas are a great challenge, as the proportion of people below the poverty line exceeds
20% in all the countries studied except Uruguay and is over 60% in five of them. Uruguay is actually the only
country where the proportion of people below the poverty threshold is higher in urban than in rural areas. As
regards recent trends, in the 15 countries with data available for more than one period, there was a tendency for
poverty to diminish to a greater or lesser degree in 8, but it rose in 4. Trends in urban and rural populations are
not always convergent; in Honduras and the Plurinational State of Bolivia, for example, urban poverty has been
rising and rural poverty falling, which could be a result of selective migration from country to city.
To understand recent trends, it is important to study the evolution of the previous decade, as is done in
the Social Panorama of Latin America (ECLAC, 2017c). According to this analysis, measured aggregate poverty
diminished in the region between 2002 and 2014; the rate of reduction tailed off over the period, however, and
the declines were smaller in some countries with large populations. The downward trend in poverty continued
in most of the countries. However, the number of people in extreme poverty was up by 8 million in 2016. 6 This
was partly because of continuing population growth resulting from demographic inertia (a large number of
women of childbearing age generating a large number of births) despite population dynamics characterized by
declining fertility, but mainly because the fertility rates of the poorest in the region have remained above the
replacement rate. Similarly, the absolute number of poor people was much the same in 2016 as in 2008, when
poverty percentages were higher. These demographic shifts need to be taken into account by the countries
when development-oriented programmes and policies are designed. The most up-to-date figures in the <strong>report</strong>
indicate that “there were 186 million poor in Latin America in 2016, representing 30.7% of the population,
while 61 million people or 10% of the population were living in extreme poverty” (ECLAC, 2017c, p. 80).
Figure III.2
Latin America (selected countries): population below the national poverty line
(Percentages)
A. Total population
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Bolivia
(Plur. State of)
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
2013
2015
2013
2014
2011
2013
2013
2015
2013
2015
2013
2015
2013
2015
2013
2014
2014
2012
2013
2013
2014
2012
2013
2012
2013
2014
2015
2013
2015
2013
2015
2013
2015
2013
2015
Costa Rica
Dominican
Rep.
Ecuador
El Salvador
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Jamaica
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Uruguay
Venezuela
(Bol. Rep. of)
6
This estimate is subject to revision, as figures that were not available at the time of calculation were estimated by ECLAC (2017c) from changes in gross
domestic product (GDP), this being done for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Plurinational State of Bolivia. These
approximations may be modified once survey values are included.
44