A total of 18,480,432 people were enumerated in Chile in the Population and Housing Census that took place between March and July 2024, of whom 51.5% are female and 48.5% are male. These facts were reported this morning by Ricardo Vicuña, director of the National Statistics Institute (INE), the agency in charge of conducting the census in the country, and by Macarena Alvarado, head of the 2024 Census. The first release of the results of the operation included the number of people enumerated by region and commune and their breakdown by sex and age bracket, as well as the number of dwellings and households enumerated.

The regions with the largest percentage of the population are the Metropolitan Region (7,400,741 people, equivalent to 40% of the enumerated residents), the Valparaíso Region (1,896,053 people, equivalent to 10.3% of enumerated residents), and the Biobío Region (1,613,059 people, equivalent to 8.7% of enumerated residents). Furthermore, five regions had more than one million people: the Metropolitan Region, Valparaíso, Biobío, Maule, and La Araucanía. In 2024, more than one million people were enumerated in the Araucanía Region for the first time.

Population aging

The figures confirm the progressive aging of the population. A comparison with previous censuses shows an increase in the percentage of people aged 65 or over, which reached 14% in the 2024 Census, while 32 years earlier in 1992, this percentage was 6.6%.  These figures were 8.1% in 2002 and 11.4% in 2017. Over the same period, the percentage of people aged 14 or under decreased from 29.4% in 1992 to 17.7% in 2024. These figures were 25.7% in 2002 and 20.1% in 2017.

In 2024, the Aging Index in Chile showed that for every 100 people aged 14 years or under, there were 79 people aged 65 years or over. This figure was 22.3 in 1992, and it increased to 31.3 in 2002 and 56.9 in 2017.  The regions with the highest Aging Index were Valparaíso (98.6) and Ñuble (97.6). In contrast, the regions with the lowest values were Tarapacá (43.9) and Antofagasta (49.3).

Enumerated dwellings and households

In the 2024 Census, 7,642,716 dwellings were enumerated nationwide, of which 99.9% (7,638,396) were private dwellings and 0.1% (4,320) were collective dwellings. The number of private dwellings grew 17.8% compared to the 2017 Census and 30.4% compared to the 1992 Census.

Similarly, there were 6,596,527 households in the country, which also represents an increase with respect to the 2017 Census, when 5,651,637 households were enumerated. In 1992, this figure stood at 3,293,779; thus the number of households in the country doubled between 1992 and 2024. In addition, a decreasing trend in the average number of persons per household has been observed in recent decades: from four persons per household in 1992 to 2.8 persons per household in 2024, while there were 3.6 in 2002 and 3.1 in 2017. This decrease has been accompanied by an increase in the percentage of single-person households: from 8.3% in 1992 to 21.8% in 2024, while there were 11.4% in 2002 and 17.7% in 2017. In short, although the number of households is increasing, they are becoming smaller.

The composition of households has been in line with the trend of population aging, in which two indicators stand out. The percentage of households with at least one person aged 14 or under decreased from 62% in 1992 to 33.2% in 2024 (with 54.3% in 2002 and 39.9% in 2017). On the other hand, the percentage of households made up only of people aged 65 or over increased from 4.3% in 1992 to 11.6% in 2024 (with 6% in 2002 and 9.2% in 2017).

Online Census

One of the innovations of the 2024 Census was the use of technology. A total of 93.7% (17,320,830) of the enumerated population was interviewed in person using a mobile device, and 6.2% (1,154,397) were interviewed using the Online Census Platform. Paper was used only in case of contingencies, and it was thus used to conduct interviews with 5,205 people (0.03%).

Operational Performance

The response rate at the national level is 95.2%, and the refusal rate is 0.9%.

The complete results of this first installment will be available in Spanish at www.censo2024.cl.

Presentation on the context of the 2024 Population and Housing Census (Spanish only)

Presentation of National Results of the 2024 Population and Housing Census (Spanish only)

Methodology Factsheet (Spanish only)

Glossary (Spanish only)

Infographic (Spanish only)