According to the INE, Chile’s fertility rate will reach 1.5 children per woman in 2022. This figure is the lowest in Latin America and similar to rates in European countries.
It is argued that this figure is not ‘sustainable’ in the long term and that the fertility rate should be at least 2.1 children per woman. What ‘sustainable’ means to those behind the fertility increase agenda is worth asking.
First, we need to distinguish between the challenges we face and the challenges we accept due to the significant increase in life expectancy from 70 years in 1980 to 81 years today. The ratio of old to young will indeed increase, but ageing has nothing to do with declining fertility. Those who claim that such an increase is dangerous do so to confuse and recruit supporters to their cause.
Second, increasing the fertility rate to make it “sustainable” is an economic concept based on a model of development and growth that requires there to be more supply than demand for labour to have a significant number of the population available as cheap labour.
If there is not enough cheap labour available through births to satisfy the economic growth model, it is sought through migration, as has happened in Chile. According to the study: Migration at the local level in Chile. Desafíos, demandas y políticas en tiempos de pandemia by Neida Colmenares and Kerelys Abarca, there will be 1,462,103 migrants in Chile in 2021 and 49% of all foreigners will arrive in Chile between 2017 and 2020.
We cannot simply assume that the only solutions are to increase fertility or migration. Let us try to improve the quality of education by educating creative, critical, curious and social girls, boys and young people, thus increasing productivity and technologising the economy.
Fewer students as a result of lower birth rates will free up educational resources. We must resist cuts in the education budget. This is not about more resources for more of the same, but about making the promise of universal primary education, fewer pupils per class, and more and better teacher training and education a reality.
Let us take this opportunity to redefine what we mean by quality in education. The results of standardised tests such as SIMCE, PAES or PISA are only one part of quality, despite what rankings published in the media would have us believe. These tests are far from measuring the development of creativity and critical thinking, the level of creativity or the social skills of students. These skills are crucial for learning traditional subjects.
The agenda to increase the birth rate hides the intention to perpetuate the economic model based on cheap labour, low-quality education and the justification of the arrival of immigrants with low labour skills. There are other alternatives, such as betting on better quality education for a 21st-century economic model.