Since population trends are primary dynamics in the historical process, Arriaga’s monograph holds great significance for historians of Latin America. He is a senior staff member of the University of California (Berkeley) International Population and Urban Research unit as well as Lecturer in the Department of Demography.
Arriaga begins by asserting that rapidly reduced mortality in Latin America produced “an overall rate of natural population growth heretofore unparalleled in human history.” He finds that some 27 million more Latin Americans lived in 1960 than would have existed had mortality remained at pre-1930 levels in eleven countries analyzed. He calculates that average life expectancy increased from 24.4 years in 1860 to 33.6 in 1930 and then to 55.8 by 1960. He concludes that the present contrast between birth and death rates in Latin America is greater than any region has ever before known. In temporal perspective, mortality remained nearly constant in rate until 1900, then began to fall in some countries, and dropped rapidly in all Latin America after 1930. A population increase that would have taken 30 years under pre-1930 conditions actually occurred in 20, and Latin America will double its population every 22 years if 1960’s conditions continue.
Declining mortality brought serious economic consequences. The proportion of individuals aged 14 or younger and 65 or older increased markedly relative to Latin Americans aged 15-64. So average cost of education per worker increased 13 percent from 1930 to 1960 for this reason alone.
Arriaga lucidly explains several disquieting realities. Despite Latin American maternal mortality rates 750 percent those of Europe, the difference in life expectancy for 15-year old girls in the two regions amounts to merely 12 days! As mortality declines, one anticipates that crude birth rates will fall simply because they are calculated on a larger population base, yet official birth rates rose in Latin America to 1960. Arriaga points out that increased life expectancy for both women and men favored augmented births from marital unions, and he estimates birth rates even higher than the official figures. Comparing Latin America to other areas, Arriaga notes that no country in the world has witnessed a birth rate decline precipitous enough to match the 1930-1960 diminution of Latin American mortality. He concludes that while general economic development apparently accounted for mortality decline in some nations prior to 1930, improved public health programs and medical care after 1930 caused the recent population explosion independently of national level of economic development.
