Data from the 2022 Demographic Census, produced by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), reveal that Brazil has surpassed the mark of 200 million inhabitants. However, the annual growth rate is the lowest since 1872, when records began.
The rate stood at 0.52% per annum, remaining below 1% for the first time. Furthermore, it has been falling since the 1960s, when it was 2.99% a year – and it was also the biggest in history.
Experts heard by CNN evaluated the impacts and pondered the reasons for the decrease in the pace of growth of the Brazilian population, highlighting the challenges that the movement brings to public administration.
Professor Jefferson Mariano, a socioeconomic analyst at the IBGE, pointed out that other editions of the Census had pointed to a decrease in the geometric rate of population growth, but what was surprising in this survey was the sharp drop in the percentage.
“In recent years, available registrations have already been signaling a drop in the birth rate, especially in regions of the country that had this indicator very high. This trend should continue and signal the beginning of the population reduction process between 2030 and 2040”, he says.
Consequences
He assesses that the problem in this scenario of population reduction, especially young people, is a possible impairment of the country’s productive capacity, with impacts even within the scope of public accounts.
Mariano considers that the demographic transition in rich countries was much slower than that observed in Brazil. In addition, the country has failed to advance with regard to economic development and, especially, in relation to the reduction of social inequalities.
Gleisson Rubin, executive director of the Longevity Institute, reinforces that the older portion of the population is increasing, with inhabitants aged 60 or over representing 15% of the total, according to data from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) 2022.
Rubin explains that, in the 1950s, the age structure “had a pyramid shape with a very wide base and very narrow upper layers”, that is, most of the population was young.
Over the years, the pyramid began to have a narrower base and an enlargement of the intermediate layers – growth of the adult population. Currently, there is enlargement “at the top of this figure, which almost no longer resembles a pyramid”, according to the expert.
“By 2040, one in four Brazilians should be in this age group, bringing Brazil closer to the reality of Western European countries. On the other hand, our productive capacity did not change significantly in the period, nor did we manage to make consistent progress in reducing the indicators that measure social inequality,” he said.
“The challenges for the public pension and primary health care systems tend to be even greater in the coming decades”, he comments.
What can explain this change in the age pyramid?
Experts agree that the drop in the birth rate is the main factor behind the change in the country’s age pyramid.
Jefferson Mariano points out that situations such as the zika virus outbreak contributed to the drop in the birth rate in the middle of the decade, in addition to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, in the last three years, which caused an increase in the mortality rate.
Gleisson Rubin, in turn, points out that the pandemic alone was not able to cause such a sharp drop in the index, as the survey covers a period of 12 years.
Thus, he considers that generational, rather than territorial, issues may be interfering with this issue, with similar behaviors being observed in other countries.
“The reasons why young couples do not have children, or have only one, may vary according to the context of each location, but the fact is that each year the decision to have children or not seems to be more conditioned by economic factors. than by cultural factors”, he says.
2022 Census
The 2022 Census is the 13th operation of its kind carried out in Brazilian territory, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
By law, censuses are carried out no more than 10 years apart. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the collection of information and formulation of results was postponed in 2020.
In 2021, according to the institute, the survey was also not carried out due to the “deep budget cut”, and was finally applied in 2022.
IBGE census takers visited 106.8 million addresses and 90.7 million households in 2022.
62,388,143 “basic” questionnaires were applied, with 26 questions and an average time of 6 minutes; and 7,772,064 “extended” questionnaires, with 77 questions and an average time of 16 minutes.
In all, 68,659,405 interviews were conducted in person; 362,563 questionnaires were completed online; and 412,725 interviews were conducted by telephone.
The institute points out that data acquired through censuses are used, for example, in social and economic planning in the country.
Source: CNN Brasil
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