These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Demographic tensions in Central America.
    Journal: Int Demogr; 1986 Aug; 5(8):5,8. PubMed ID: 12268221.
    Abstract:
    This discussion of Central America focuses on the rapid growth of its population, its stagnating economy, and those countries that are socioeconomically advanced. Between 1950-85 the population of Central America tripled, from 9.1 million to 26. 4 million, due to marked mortality declines and the absence of off-setting fertility declines. The distribution of Central Americas's growing populations sets its population growth apart from that of other developing regions. Currently, almost half of all Central Americans live in cities. Although the average growth rate for Central American countries has fallen and is expected to drop further, the decline does not counterbalance the effect of the absolute rise in population numbers. The average annual growth rate of more than 3% annually in the 1960s fell to about 2.6% in recent years, but this decline is due primarily to socioeconomically advanced Costa Rica and Panama. Central America's age structure further complicates the population crisis. About 43% of Central Americans are under the age of 15. When the increasingly larger young population group enters it reproductive years, the potential for future growth (albeit the falling rate of population increase) is unparalleled. UN population projections show the region's population at 40 million by the year 2000. The 1973 oil crisis began a downward spiral for the buoyant post World War II Central American economy. Between 1950-79, real per capita income growth in Central America doubled, with Central American economies growing an average of 5.3% annually. By the early 1980s, overseas markets of the trade-dependent countries of Central America had dried up due to protectionism abroad and slumping basic commodity prices. These and other factors plunged Central America into its current economic malaise of falling real per capita income, rising unemployment, curtailed export led economic growth, and a rising cost of living. In general, economic growth in Central America disproportionately benefits high and middle income groups, thereby widening the already large gap between rich and poor. Average per capita income for the poorest 20% of Central Americans is $90 a year (in 1970 US dollars); over half subsist on an average of $200 a year. Central America's economic crisis is further intensified by the marked increase in the economically active population. Doubling in size from about 2.1 million in 1970 to 4.2 million in 1985, the labor force increasingly pressures an economy already weakened by high unemployment and underemployment. Socioeconomically advanced Costa Rica and Panama are Central America's notable exceptions. Life expectancy at birth and infant mortality rates for these better off countries, e.g., are comparable to those of developed countries. Costa Ricans enjoy the most equitable distributional income of all Central Americans. Panama's income differential is 1 of the widest in the world, but its relative wealth affords more for each of its citizens.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]