Colombia is advancing through the stages of demographic transition at such a high speed that, recently, the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) recalculated its population projections until 2070 with lower valuesinitially estimated based on the last population census carried out in 2018 (‘National population projections. Period 2020 – 2070’, March 2023).
(Read more: Challenges and opportunities of global population ageing: analysis)
According to these new and recent projections, the Colombian population would grow at an increasingly slower rate until 2052. would begin to decline in absolute terms.
In a recent article published in Portafolio, researchers Jesús Fernández and Iván Luzardo, from the University of Pennsylvania, suggested that the decline in the Colombian population would have begun in 2023. A few weeks later, the Bank of the Republic acknowledged in a blog post that the 2052 date estimated by DANE was unlikely, given that its projections did not take into account the recent drop in births and the new surge in international migration of Colombians.
According to the Bank, Population decline could have started in 2022thus confirming what was stated by professors Fernández and Luzardo.
Why is it so important to know whether the Colombian population is already declining, or if it will do so in 30 years? Because a declining population, ceteris paribus, slows down economic growth and has far-reaching economic and social consequences that force us to urgently rethink almost all public policies, including those on the demand for public goods, state finances, birth rates, social security, and especially pensions, among others. Hence the importance of DANE correcting its projections as soon as possible.
Projections of the working-age population (WAP), i.e. of people aged 15 years and over, are also derived from projections of the total population. PET is a fundamental addition to the study of the labor market It represents the potential job offer and is projected monthly, together with the total population, in the Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH), the Dane survey that investigates the demographic and socio-labor characteristics of Colombians. It is important to emphasize that the monthly population projections of the household surveys and the projections to 2070, prepared in 2023, are the result of different processes carried out by the same entity, the Dane.
Population
Now, between the years 2020 and 2024 it is possible to compare the populations projected by the Dane in March 2023 with those that the same department periodically publishes in the GEIH. From this comparison it follows that they are not equal. and that the former, in absolute value, always exceed the latter by about 1 million people. However, in 2024 the total population and the PET of the GEIH increased more rapidly.
To recap, in the opinion of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Bank of the Republic, the projections to 2070 of the Dane foresee a decrease in the Colombian population that is too slow for the next few years, so that the population would decrease in absolute terms only in the distant 2052. Now it turns out that in the case of the total population and the PET of the household surveys – calculated in a different exercise from the projections to 2070 – this phenomenon would be accentuated.
In this context, it is also surprising that the PET of household surveys, after growing at decreasing rates, has been doing so at increasing rates for about a year. We consulted Dane about the reasons for this rise in the PET and the answer was that “The behavior of these populations and their growth rate is normal for the entire period analyzed,” without providing any justification for this normality (how is it related to the evolution of birth rates, migrations or deaths?).
Unfortunately, if you graph it the evolution from 2002 to date of the PET of the GEIHthe normality that the Dane officials mention in their less than enlightening response is not appreciated.
According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean -ECLAC-, “The growth of the total population and the working-age population in countries is gradual and monotonic over time” (Demographic Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2023, p. 20). However, the attached graph does not show any gradual growth in the Colombian PET between 2002 and 2024. Rather, this growth is more like an electrocardiogram than the expected evolution of a population.
(Read more: Has demographic decline begun in Colombia?)
Labor market
The peaks of the years 2010 and 2014 stand out, both lasting a single year. If we abstract from them, however, a tendency towards a decrease in PET is clear until 2015. In that year, the mass immigration of Venezuelans to the country began, which reached a maximum in 2020. Thenthe migration phenomenon has died out and PET growth slowed again until mid-2023, when it began to pick up again.
What phenomenon is behind this increase? More precisely, the increase in the population aged 30 and over, given that, on the contrary, the number of young people is decreasing according to the same source of information. This was the answer we expected from our consultation with DANE. In the absence of a convincing answer, the current DANE demographic projections seem to be also contaminating the results of the employment and unemployment surveys.
STEFANO FARNE
Portfolio
