The phrase was repeated for years in many Chilean homes as an economic warning rather than a moral one. Getting pregnant early meant cutting off studies, reducing future income and increasing economic dependency. This cultural message was reinforced by public policies and massive campaigns to prevent teenage pregnancy, especially since the mid-2000s. A call from society as a whole to postpone pregnancy, from the family (“you ruin your life”), education (prevention and postponement) and the State (public health, contraceptives and abortion pills).
The result was very successful, perhaps too successful.
Chile today exhibits one of the lowest adolescent fertility rates in the world: around six births per 1,000 women between 15 and 19 years old, compared to figures higher than 40 or more in countries such as Peru, Mexico or Brazil. From a public policy point of view, the objective was met.
The problem is that the message permeated beyond adolescence. The perception that having children is a high economic risk extended to all of adult life. The expected cost of parenting—in terms of income, job growth, well-being, and individual freedom—became too high. The result is a total fertility rate close to 1 child per woman, well below the replacement level (2.1). That is, we would go from a current population of 20 million in Chile to 10 million by the year 2100.
At the moment, We have a demographic profile similar to that of aging developed countries, but without their income level, neither social protection network nor its productivity. Fewer births today mean lower potential growth and increasing pressure on pensions, health and long-term care.
Here the critical public policy question appears: What will happen to a growing population that will reach old age without children or family networks? In Chile, the family continues to be the main informal insurance mechanism in old age. If this disappears, the problem is transferred entirely to the State.
It is not possible to force having children. Birth rates, like most of our decisions, respond to incentives and level of perceived risk. As a public policy, the challenge is to reduce the objective risks of parenting: financial, labor, educational and health.
We must discuss and think about education and health as a social guarantee of childhood and adolescence. In addition, reduce the risk of unemployment when you have children, for example, with a pension savings insurance mechanism with an intertemporal return for those who have children.
For decades we taught that having children was a problem. Today the challenge is to prevent it from continuing to be that way from the point of view of public policy, but without forgetting the social discourse from the family, school and the State.
date: 2026-02-15 08:48:00