Chilean demography

Chile. Population density by commune, according to census 2002.

The estimated population of the Republic of Chile by demography according to the 2017 census was 17,574,003 inhabitants, with a density of 23.24 inhabitants/km². Of these, approximately 40% are concentrated in the Santiago Metropolitan Region. There are also 1,492,522 people of foreign origin estimated at December 31, 2019.

Population

Total population

19 250 192 (2022)

Projections

• Year 2030: 19 458 098
• Year 2040: 20 156 641
• Year 2050: 20 319 303
• Year 2060: 20 075 268
• Year 2070: 19 550 140
• Year 2080: 18 854 185
• Year 2090: 18 075 823
• Year 2100: 17 332 335

Source: Chile - Population 1950 - 2100

Ethnography of Chile

This section is an extract from Chilean ethnic groups.[chuckles]edit]

Official statistics collected by the census consider membership of indigenous or indigenous peoples, rather than identification with other groups outside the Chilean nationality standard.

Chilean Huasos at the beginning of the centuryXX..

By default, it can be considered in the first instance that the Chilean population is 88.9% non-indigenous, 9.1% mapuche, 0.7% Aymara and 1% belonging to other indigenous peoples, including the rapanui, Atacameños, quechuas, kollas, diaguitas, kawésqar, yaganes or yámanas. However, it is necessary to consider that identification with chilenity is primarily subject to cultural and dialectal references, as well as to the customs and habits of each subject. As a whole, that has dialogued with the different identity structures around nationality, including Eurocentric perspectives and the exaltation of the mestizaje as instruments of differentiation racial.

The Chilean population estimates represent ideas adjusted to unstable and variable elements over time. However, it is possible to recognize patterns among each of them:

• The doctor in Latin American studies at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Francisco Lizcano, considers Chile a country mainly criollo in cultural and ancestral terms, although with a strong presence of mestizaje and indigenous peoples.
• Professor Joaquín Bosque Maurel affirmed the existence of a majority criollafrom the presentation of the Spanish professor Eugenio García Zarza on migrations in Ibero-America.
• The anthropologist and Spanish professor Claudio Esteva Fabregat, of the University of Barcelona, considered in 1981 that in northern Chile a predominant mestizaje balanced while in the rest of the country the mestizaje It is overwhelmingly Hispanic.
• On the other hand, Chilean historian Gabriel Salazar portrays a fundamental disparity between criollos and mestizosin which territorial inequality prevails and is the cause of systemic invisibility. Although it does not define majority or minorities, it considers the village as an important mass of people seeking to rehabit the historically denied spaces.

• According to the report on Chile made by the Latin Barometer Corporation in 2020 and, based on a self-perception survey, 52% of the total surveyed declared to be white, 26% mestizo6% indigenous, 1% mulatto, 2% Other and 14% did not know or did not respond to the question What race/ethnicity do you consider to belong to?

It follows that the Chilean population is the product of a gradual succession of inter-ethnic exchanges between two main actors: the Mediterranean colon of Spanish origin and the native indigenous of the territories that today correspond to modern Chile.

History

Since 1992, the Chilean census has asked about belonging to an indigenous ethnic group, but there are no data on the ethnicity of the rest of the population. However, certain studies consider that the remaining non-indigenous population, around 95% of Chileans, can be subdivided into two large groups, according to their genetic heritage and their appearance: "whites" and "mestizos". Although there are various studies on the ethnic structure in Chile, their results vary from one study to another, and from one estimate to another. Thus, for example, an estimate by the Mexican professor Francisco Lizcano, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, calculates that 52.7% of Chileans would be criollos, 39.3% would be mestizo and 8% would be indigenous. A study by the University of Chile identifies 64% of Chileans as Caucasian, 35% as mestizo and 5% as indigenous.

The Spanish anthropologist and professor Claudio Esteva Fabregat, from the University of Barcelona, considers that culturally a balanced miscegenation predominates in the north of Chile, and that in the rest of the country the miscegenation is overwhelmingly Hispanic. While the Spanish professor Joaquín Bosque Maurel concludes a notable majority Creole, citing the book and studies by the Spanish professor Eugenio García Zarza. (1992), Migrations in Latin America

According to opinion studies, Chileans themselves see themselves as predominantly white. In the 2007 Latinobarómetro survey, 53% declared that they were "white", 33% that they were mestizo". do you consider belonging?"; 59% said they were "white", 29% "mestizo" and 6% declared themselves "indigenous".

Graphic of demographic evolution of Chile between 1835 and

Ethnographic history of Chile

During the colonial period, the Spanish Crown found it necessary to maintain a continuous flow of soldiers to protect its distant American colonies from indigenous people not yet subjugated, and privateers serving rival European powers. In fact, an army of a permanent and professional nature, with a large number of troops, was established especially for Chile. The Spaniards came from all regions of Spain, especially from Andalusia, Extremadura, the Basque Country, the Principality of Asturias, Navarra and the two Castillas. Many of them ended up settling in Chile as peasant settlers after fighting Mapuche resistance to the conquest.

In the 18th century there was a massive immigration of Spanish civilians, mainly of Basque origin, attracted mainly by the liberalization of trade decreed by the Spanish Crown. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Basques made up 5% of the population in Chile (3.5.1% from the Basque Country and 1.5% from Navarra). They managed to be the most important regional group of the Chilean population, displacing the natives and descendants of those born in the regions of Castilla la Nueva, Castilla la Vieja and Andalucía, who were the majority components of the Chilean population during the Colonial period. Most of these Basque immigrants initially dedicated themselves to petty trade, although some of them soon amassed a great fortune, later mingling with the Creole aristocracy of Castilian origin, who owned the land. This new Castilian-Basque aristocracy would form what would be the base of the Chilean ruling class.

Along with the Spanish colonists came small groups of African slaves, who constituted 0.3% of the national population at the beginning of the 19th century. During the wars of independence many slaves freedmen left forced the country towards Peru, since they made up a large part of the independence army. With the abolition of slavery, in 1823, the flow of African immigrants ceased, and the black ethnic group in Chile almost completely disappeared.

In the Government of Agustín de Jáuregui, between 1777 and 1778, the first general population census of the Bishopric of Santiago was carried out, between the Atacama desert and the Maule river, including the province of Cuyo, and indicated that the population was 259,646 inhabitants and was made up of 73.5% white, 7.9% mestizo, 8.6% indigenous and 9.8% black. In 1784, Francisco Hurtado, Mayor of the Province of Chiloé, carried out a population census of Chiloé according to which the population amounted to 26,703, of which 56.4% white and 43.5% indigenous. Finally, in 1812, the Bishopric of Concepción carried out a population census, from the Maule river to the south, but without including the inhabitants of the province of Chiloé; which resulted in a population of 210,567, of which 86.1% were Spanish and white, 10% indigenous, and 3.7% mestizos, blacks, and mulattoes.

In 1848 considerable German and French immigration occurred, German immigration was sponsored by the Chilean government for colonization purposes for the southern regions of the country. These Germans (also Swiss and Austrian), notably attracted by the natural composition of the provinces of Valdivia, Osorno and Llanquihue, settled on the lands donated by the Chilean government to populate the region. There is also a large number of other Europeans, mainly German, Spanish, Italian, Swiss, French, Croatian and English, who arrived in Chile after the First and Second World War, especially in the south. Currently, the descendants of those first immigrants live mostly in large cities, following the logic of population concentration, a phenomenon that has been progressively observed in Chile since the 20th century.

According to the 2002 census, the native indigenous peoples of the country represent 4.6% of the population. Most of these indigenous people are Mapuche. Aymara and Quechua-speaking peoples live along the northern border with Peru and Bolivia. There are also people of Polynesian descent, aborigines from the insular Chilean territory of Easter Island in Oceania.

Evolution of the population

These data are based on the results obtained by censuses in the Colony.

• In 1536 it is estimated that between Copiapó and Valdivia there were one million indigenous people and it was reduced by half by the end of the century. Other calculations that include the territory from Copiapó to Chiloé (territory of Mapuche-speaking peoples) speak of 725 000 to 1 540 000 natives and reduced to two thirds with the conquest.
• In 1570, 624 000 inhabitants are estimated.
• In 1590, 582 000 inhabitants are estimated.
• In 1600 are estimated at 190 525 -549 000 inhabitants.
• In 1620, 557 000 inhabitants are estimated.
• In 1778 there were 808 861 inhabitants.
• In 1784-1796, 430 593 inhabitants were estimated.
• In 1800, an estimated 750 000 inhabitants (230 000 indigenous).
• In 1810 it is estimated at 800 000 inhabitants.
• In 1812 there were 877 148 inhabitants.
• In 1813 there were 823 685 inhabitants. (At that time the population in the Mapuche territories was estimated at 112 000 people).

These data are based on the results obtained by the censuses carried out in the country during its republican history. Between the censuses of 1835 and 1875, Araucanía was not included. Since 1885, Araucanía, Arica, Antofagasta, Tarapacá and Tacna have been included, the latter is no longer included since the 1930 census.

• In 1835, the first official census of the Republic was 1,010,336 persons.
• In 1843 there were 1 083 801 inhabitants. It is estimated that 200,000 people were omitted.
• In 1854 there were 1 439 120 inhabitants.
• In 1865 there were 1 819 223 inhabitants.
• In 1875 there were 2 075 971 inhabitants.
• In 1885 there were 2 507 005 inhabitants.
• In 1895 there were 2 695 625 inhabitants.
• In 1907 there were 3,231 531 inhabitants.
• In 1920 3,730,235 inhabitants were counted.
• In 1930 there were 4 287 445 inhabitants.
• In 1940 there were 5,023 539 inhabitants.
• In 1960 there were 7 374 115 inhabitants.
• In 1970 there were 884 115 inhabitants.
• In 1982 there were 11 329 736 inhabitants.
• In 1992, there were 13 348 401 inhabitants.
• In 2002 there were 15 116 435 inhabitants.
• In 2012, 16 572 831 inhabitants were counted (preliminary report).
• In 2017 there were 17 574 003 inhabitants.
• In 2050 it is estimated that the Chilean population would grow to between 19.9 million and 23.7 million, between bassist and alcist calculations.

The Chilean population has greatly increased its life expectancy, at the beginning of the 20th century the average life span was 35 years, a hundred years later it is 78 years, there has also been a drop in the birth rate. The population aging process will occur throughout Latin America, especially in the countries of the Southern Cone (for example, Argentina will go from 4.9 million elderly people in 2000 to 7.8 in 2025 and 12.7 in 2050)..

Growth of the Chilean population over 60 years of age.

Migration

European and Middle Eastern immigration, produced during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, together with that corresponding to the Atlantic coasts of the Southern Cone, was the most significant in Latin America, and preferably included Germans, British, Croatians, Italians, French, Palestinians, Jews, Greeks, Dutch, Swiss, among others.

According to the 2002 census, the number of foreigners residing in Chile amounted to some 184,664 people, which represented 1.2% of the total population. Between 2004 and 2010, legal immigration from neighboring countries to Chile has become the most important, increasing by 50% to an estimated 365,459 people, mainly from Peru (136,819), Argentina (61,563), Bolivia (24,917), Ecuador (19,784) and Colombia (14,029).

The foreign contingent in Chile has never exceeded 4.5% of the population (logically, some of their descendants who are Chilean by birth are not counted in this percentage), and immigration figures have increased since 1990. Its social influence and the consequences of this prolonged arrival of people of different nationalities, constitute a strong impact, although the proportion of foreigners in Chile is incomparable with that in those European countries where up to 23% (for example in Switzerland) of the population is of foreign nationality.

Despite the fact that emigration has decreased during the last decade, in 2005 it was determined that 487,174 Chileans resided outside of Chile, representing close to 3% of the estimated total population of the country in that year —16,267,278 inhabitants— Of the total number of Chileans who emigrated, most were in Argentina (43.3%), the United States (16.6%), Sweden (5.6%), Canada (5.2%) and Australia (4.8%).

Within the country, the mobility of the population has increased during the last decades causing a massive migration from the fields to the big cities of the country. While in the central-southern regions of the country, more than 80% of its population was born in the same region (in the Biobío Region it reaches 86.11%), in the Metropolitan Region only 71% of the population is born., while in extreme regions such as the Magallanes Region this figure reaches only 55%. The majority of Chileans who moved from their towns of origin to other regions did so between the 1960s and 1980s, due to political, economic, and labor problems (many families in the south did not own land, nor permanent trades, they did not have basic services either). Of all Chilean emigrants, only 15.7% have done so after 1989. The migration rate (difference between immigrants and emigrants) reached 0.00 in 2002, indicating virtual equality between both groups.

Demographic evolution of Chile

census information and Chilean demographic projection.

Although the population of Chile has quintupled during the 20th century, the intercensal growth rate from 1992 to 2002 was 1.24% per year, which should continue to decline in the coming years. The demographic evolution of Chile (according to data from the 2002 census) has progressed tending to converge to a profile of a developed country. According to the latest INE data, in 2009 the crude birth rate was 15.0 per thousand and the crude death rate was 5.4 per thousand with a natural growth of the population of 9.6 per thousand or 0.96%. Thus, there has been a notable decrease in the number of births, since the crude birth rate stood at 18.5‰ in 1997. In the region, Chile integrates, together with Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay, the group of countries with an advanced demographic transition, characterized by populations with moderate or low birth rates and mortality, which translates into a low natural growth, of the order of 1%. The population pyramid has consequently evolved from a pyramidal profile (many young population and little old population) to a bell-shaped profile with a narrower base, which means a notable increase in the adult population with a mean age of over 30 years. In 2002, the rate of people over 60 years of age was 11.4%, a figure higher than the 9.8% of 1992. Projections indicate that in 2010 this figure would reach almost 13% of the total population.

Another fact that highlights the demographic evolution of Chile is that according to the INE, the total fertility rate in 2009 was around 1.9 children per woman, a value below the generational replacement limit of 2.1 children per woman. This value has remained constant in recent years, which places Chile as one of the countries with the lowest fertility in Latin America, along with Cuba, among others.

Social conditions of the population

Chile. Conurbations and cities over 10,000 hectares, calculation 2005.

The social conditions of the population have improved significantly compared to those of a decade ago, largely thanks to economic growth, broad access to credit, and social policies that are sensitive to Chile's problems. The infant mortality rate is 7.9 ‰ in 2009. The percentage of the population living in poverty has fallen from 45.1% in 1987 to 15.1% in 2009. Indigence was 3.7% that year. The estimated life expectancy in 2009 is one of the highest in Latin America, which according to the INE is 78.4 years (75.7 years for men and 81.2 for women). The literacy rate is 95.8% (2002).

The extensive shantytowns or poorly built neighborhoods, called poblaciones callampas (or more formally, camps), which emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, have been disappearing great speed due to the promotion of housing policies, which have made it possible to relocate a large number of families in sectors of social housing with access to electricity, drinking water, telephone and commercial services.

Santiago is home to about 40% of the total population of Chile. Their number has barely changed compared to a decade ago, partly due to the progressive emigration of their population from the city to the new suburbs, San Bernardo, Puente Alto, Buin, Paine, Peñaflor and Colina, among others. Which makes it one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Latin America and a great agglutinator of industry and services.

Socioeconomic segmentation

Distribution in deciles of autonomous income per household in Chilean pesos as of November 2009.

Officially, the Chilean State, through the Ministry of Social Development and Family (MINDES), classifies the population into quintiles (or deciles) of autonomous income, in which each quintile corresponds to 20% of households ordered by income per capita household, with the first quintile being the poorest 20%, and the bottom quintile being the richest 20%.

Casén Survey 2006.

Statistics

Chile's population pyramid, by 2020.

Age Structure

0-14 years: 22.3%

15-64 years: 68.7 %

65 years and older: 9 %

Mean age

total: 31.4 years

men: 30.4 years

women: 32.4 years (CIA, 2008 est.)

Masculinity Index

at birth: 1.05 man(s)/woman

less than 15 years: 1.05 man(s)/woman

15-64 years: 1 man(s)/woman

65 years and more: 0.72 man(s)/woman

total population: 0.96 man(s)/woman (CIA, 2009 est.)

Life expectancy at birth

total population: 81.2 years (I.N.E. CHILE, 2012 est.)

man: 80.1 years (I.N.E. CHILE, 2012 est.)

woman: 82.3 years (I.N.E. CHILE, 2012 est.)

HIV/AIDS

Adult prevalence rate: 0.2 % (CIA, 2012 est.)

People living with HIV/AIDS: 22,254 (CIA, 2012 est.)

Deaths: 400 (CIA, 2012 est.)

Basic indicators (historical series)

The historical series of basic indicators of the Republic of Chile is presented below:

Current Vital Statistics

• Number of births since January–March 2020 = 51,904
• Number of births since January-March 2021 = 42.171
• Number of deceased since January-March 2020 = 25,674
• Number of deceased since January-March 2021 = 33,196
• Natural balance since January-March 2020 = 26.230
• Natural balance since January-March 2021 = 8,975

Source: Department of Health Statistics and Information.