El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. As of 2018, the country had a population of approximately 6.42 million, mostly consisting of European and Native American descent.
This article is about the demographic features of the population of El Salvador, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The economy of El Salvador has experienced relatively low rates of GDP growth relative to other developing countries. Rates have not risen above the low single digits in nearly two decades – part of broader environment of macroeconomic instability which the integration of the US dollar has done little to improve. One problem that the Salvadoran economy faces is the inequality in the distribution of income. In 2011, El Salvador had a Gini Coefficient of .485, which although similar to that of the United States, leaves 37.8% of the population below the poverty line, due to lower aggregate income. The richest 10% of the population receives approximately 15 times the income of the poorest 40%.
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea.
Politics of Honduras takes place in a framework of a multi-party system presidential representative democratic republic. The President of Honduras is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the National Congress of Honduras. The party system is dominated by the conservative National Party of Honduras and the Liberal Party of Honduras. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Positive youth development (PYD) programs are designed to optimize youth developmental progress.
The Central American crisis began in the late 1970s, when major civil wars and communist revolutions erupted in various countries in Central America, causing it to become the most volatile region in terms of socioeconomic change. In particular, the United States feared that victories by communist forces would cause the rest of South America to become isolated from the United States if the governments of the Central American countries were overthrown and pro-Soviet communist governments were installed in their place. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, the United States often pursued its interests through puppet governments and the elite classes, whose members tended to ignore the demands of the peasant and working class.
INCAE Business School is an international business school located at the Francisco de Sola campus in Nicaragua and the Walter Kissling Gam campus in Costa Rica. The Financial Times has ranked INCAE as a top global MBA program and The Wall Street Journal has ranked INCAE Business School as one of the top 10 international business schools in the world.
Salvadoran Americans are Americans of full or partial Salvadoran descent. As of 2010, there are 2,195,477 Salvadoran Americans in the United States, the fourth-largest Hispanic community by nation of ancestry. According to the Census Bureau, in 2016 Salvadorans made up 3.8% of the total Hispanic population in the US.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in El Salvador may face legal and social challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity are legal in El Salvador, but same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex married couples.
Crime and violence affect the lives of millions of people in Latin America. Some consider social inequality to be a major contributing factor to levels of violence in Latin America, where the state fails to prevent crime and organized crime takes over State control in areas where the State is unable to assist the society such as in impoverished communities. In the years following the transitions from authoritarianism to democracy, crime and violence have become major problems in Latin America. The region experienced more than 2.5 million murders between 2000 and 2017.
Prostitution in El Salvador is not prohibited by national law, but may be prohibited by local municipal ordinances. Municipal ordinances may also prohibit the purchase of sexual services. Related activities such as facilitating, promoting or giving incentives to a person to work as a prostitute (pimping) are illegal. The prostitution of children is also illegal. Brothel ownership, however, is legal. There are no specific laws against human trafficking, but any criminal offence that includes ‘commerce in women or children’ requires sentencing to be increased by 30%.
HIV/AIDS in El Salvador has a less than 1 percent prevalence of the adult population reported to be HIV-positive, El Salvador and therefore there is a low-HIV-prevalence country, but the virus remains a significant threat in high-risk communities, such as commercial sex workers (CSWs) and men who have sex with men (MSM).
According to the Global Fund, Honduras is the Central American country most adversely affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As of 1998, Honduras had the highest prevalence of HIV out of all seven Central American countries according to a study published by the office of the Honduran Secretary of Public Health. As of that same year, Hondurans made up only 17% of the Central American population, yet Honduras contained 50% of the initial AIDS cases in Central America and 60% of all Central American cases in 2001. In more recent years, new HIV infections have decreased by 29% since 2010 while AIDS-related deaths have increased by 11% since then. HIV/AIDS heavily affects the young, active, working population in Honduras, and HIV/AIDS deaths account for 10% of the overall national mortality rate. As of 2008, AIDS was the leading cause of death among Honduran women of childbearing age and the second-leading cause of hospitalization among both men and women. Sexually transmitted infections are common, and condom use in risky sexual encounters is sporadic and variable. HIV remains a mainly heterosexual epidemic in Honduras, as 90% of emerging infections are attributed to heterosexual transmission. It is estimated that the prevalence of HIV among Honduran adults is 1.5%.
Whole Child International is a U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in 2004. Whole Child focuses on improving the quality of care for vulnerable children worldwide by working within childcare institutions (orphanages) and in limited-resource childcare centers where children often show the same unmet developmental needs and poor outcomes as those in orphanages. Whole Child's program is built as a countrywide collaboration, working together with a national government and a major local university to implement a unified strategy across a nation's childcare system.
Organized crime in El Salvador is a serious problem. Efforts to understand or deal with this phenomenon in the small Central American country have been insufficient.
For the period between 2005 and 2010, El Salvador had the third-lowest birth rate in Central America, with 22.8 births per 1,000. However, during the same period, it had the highest death rate in Central America, 5.9 deaths per 1,000. In 2015 life expectancy for men were 67.8 years and 77.0 years for women. Healthy life expectancy was 57 for males and 62 for females in 2003. There was considerable improvement in socioeconomic and health status from 1990 to 2015. On June 22, 2020, the Hospital El Salvador, a permanent hospital conversion of the convention center in San Salvador, was opened to the public; it is Latin America's largest hospital and was built to receive COVID-19 patients.
Gender inequality can be found in various areas of Salvadoran life such as employment, health, education, political participation, and family life. Although women in El Salvador enjoy equal protection under the law, they are often at a disadvantage relative to their male counterparts. In the area of politics, women have the same rights as men, but the percentage of women in office compared to men is low. Though much progress has been made since the Salvadoran Civil War ended in 1992, women in El Salvador still face gender inequality.
Salvadorans are the second largest Hispanic group in the United States and the second largest foreign born group in Los Angeles. The main wave of immigrants came during the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s, in order to escape the violence and political and economic instability in the country. Since then, Salvadorans have continued to migrate to Los Angeles as well as other cities around the United States. The community is well established in Los Angeles and stands as an integral part of its cultural and economic life.
Celina de Sola is a Salvadoran humanitarian worker and public health expert. She is the Co-founder and Vice President of programs at Glasswing International, a non-profit international organization headquartered in San Salvador and New York City.
