Aged and Not Developed; Population Policies in Uruguay, a Middle-Income Country

This paper presents an analysis of a recent elaboration process of population policies and development conducted in Uruguay, a demographically small middle-income country that has aged early, with a very advanced demographic transition and fertility rates below replacement levels since 2004. Towards 1930 Uruguay had already culminated its demographic transition, with comparatively low gross birth and mortality rates as compared with the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. As a result, the population’s age structure already showed important signs of aging by 1950, and this continued deepening further to date. The economic restrictions faced by the political responses are greater than those of industrialized countries which have experienced similar demographic processes. The strong financial pressures on the retirement and health systems, and in more general terms the concern of the political elites’ regarding the country’s demographic sustainability determined the generation of a new institutional environment related with the design of population policies. This paper resorts to a collection of laws, programs and actions, together with the rationales detailed in the corresponding accompanying statements of intent, in order to analyze these innovations with the contexts and reasons that contributed to foster them.