There was a time when Antioquia, in addition to the drive and colonizing spirit of its people, was a department famous because its families were large. The reasons for having many children were also abundant, and varied: they ranged from the need for labor in new lands, through the influence of the Catholic religion or patriarchal authority, to the need to counter infant mortality. But today that section of the country follows an inverse demographic behavior and records a worrying drop in births.
Last year, according to DANE, in that department there were 51,254 births. Of its 125 municipalities, only one (Murindo) had a fertility rate that guarantees generational replacement, that is, 2.1 children per woman. On the opposite side is Tarso, which has the lowest fertility rate in Antioquia with only 0.3 children per woman.
Many factors influence the drop in the birth rate
Two officials from the hospital in Tarso, the manager Juan Manuel Lema Hurtado and the head nurse Lizeth Alejandra Velez, gave clues about what is happening, in statements to El Colombiano: family planning programs have reduced unplanned pregnancies; easy access to procedures such as tubal ligation and vasectomies; the free dispensing of contraceptive pills and subdermal implants; and the migration of women to large cities for study or work, among others.
Other factors that are influencing the drop in the birth rate are violence and conflict, which not only displace, but also affect young adults, since the highest concentration of homicides occurs between the ages of 25 and 34, precisely the population of age to form families, the same outlet adds.
The indicator that is taken into account in these analyses, the Antioquia newspaper recalls, is the Total Fertility Rate, which measures how many children a woman would have on average throughout her reproductive life. Thus, for a population to renew itself on its own, without depending on migration, that rate must be at least 2.1 children per woman. Below that level, the population ages and eventually decreases.
Antioquia is at 0.9, El Colombiano assures citing DANE. That is, less than one child per woman on average. “In 2008, since there are records, that same figure was 1.9. The decline was 51.5% in 17 years. Even, fertility fell 40% between 2015 and 2025. This has impacted the number of births, in 2025 51,254 babies were born, which represents a drop of 43% compared to 2008,” the newspaper concludes.
Study and work compete with childrearing
But the numbers of Antioquia actually confirm a reality that all of Colombia is experiencing: in 2025, the country registered just 433,678 births, the lowest figure in the last decade, for a drop of 4.5% compared to 2024. The national decline, as occurs in the department, is due to multiple causes.
“The number of births that Colombia records today is already close to half of what it had 20 years ago,” Jairo Humberto Restrepo Zea, professor of Economics at the University of Antioquia, told the same outlet. And he warned that Antioquia, with Medellin at the head, is moving faster than the national average.
Finally, the Antioquia newspaper spoke with Juliana Morad, director of the Department of Labor Law at the Javeriana, who recalled that currently neither in Antioquia nor in Colombia are there many women like those of those times when they were only dedicated to having and raising many children.
“In the face of the female revolution and the growth of feminism in Latin America, and, of course, greater participation of women in the labor market, what happens is that women decide not to have children because they sacrifice time,” she explained. It is clear that the life project has ceased to revolve exclusively around the family. Now study, personal income and independence compete with childrearing.