A Demographic Approach to Uruguay’s Troubled Years, 1973–1985

Résumé 0

Between 1973 and 1985, Uruguay’s institutional life was interrupted by a civilian-military coup d’état, which quickly became a military dictatorship. This article aims to study the demographics of this period and of the foregoing decade (1963–1985), seeking to describe the evolution of its principal components and to investigate whether the policy measures enacted at that time had any effects upon population dynamics. The article’s demographic analysis is based on population censuses and national demographic statistics. For the policy analysis, we reviewed documentation of sessions of the State Council (the institution created by the de facto government to replace the Parliament). The results of the research show that, although the three principal demographic variables did undergo modification, the most significant changes were in levels of migration, and that it was migration that was most responsible for driving the country’s demographic trends during the period. The combined effect of declining levels of fertility and mortality, and the maintenance of a negative migration balance during an extended period, resulted in a slow rate of population growth that briefly reached negative values following the coup d’état.