Birth rate increases in Chile thanks to migrant women

---

The birth rate in Chile increased for the first time in four years thanks to migrant women, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), according to the press today. A report from the television station TVN indicates that the most recent figures on this subject, collected in the Yearbook of Vital Statistics 2018, indicate that that year 221 thousand 731 live births were registered, two thousand 545 children more than in 2017, which stopped the downward trend in the birth rate in the country. Of these, 14 percent of the babies were born to foreign women, which represented an increase of almost five percent over the previous year. Women of Haitian origin were the most prolific, with 21.1 percent of newborns, followed by Peruvians with 14.7. The regions of Tarapacá (33.7 percent), Antofagasta (28.5), and Arica Parinacota (22.8) all in the extreme north of the country, and the Metropolitan, where this capital is located, with 21 percent, reported the highest numbers of child births to foreign mothers. Those territories, mainly the capital, are also the ones that concentrate the largest number of immigrants living in Chile. The report states that the country's global fertility rate, that is, the average number of children a woman would have during her fertile life, from 15 to 49 years old, was 1.56, which according to INE data it is below the level of generational replacement, which is considered to be 2.1 children per woman. The specific fertility rate in adolescent age from 15 to 19 years old- was reduced again, reaching 23.2 births for every thousand women in that age range. Other data from the INE report show that 63,187 marriages were celebrated in Chile in 2018, 1,867 more than in 2017, while 7,256 civil union agreements were made, more than 1,000 compared to the previous year. 79.6 percent of those unions corresponded to heterosexual couples and 20.4 percent were of unions between people of the same sex, with equal parts between the pairings of men and those of women.