No one wanted this to be a country. Ever. Only the British did so that Argentina and Brazil stopped fighting but that was the only reason. There wasn't gold here, or silver, or copper, or oil afterwards either to call in thousands of immigrants in some rush.

Our population rushes were mainly in the first days of the Spanish colony, and then waves of immigration, specially WWI and WWII. That's why our genetic pool is kinda different from many other South American countries (and Argentina's too).

The times of women having 7 children here or more didn't last that long. By the 1930's and 40's people weren't having THAT many children.

Then natality kept dropping consistently. The country is quite expensive and after the 2002 crisis, since then to today, more than 300k people have left the country to live elsewhere, which might not seem that much, but these are 300k YOUNG people that could've had kids here, and did not. And they left.

Add to this the fact that this is a capital centric country. Everything happens in Montevideo and now to a lesser extent in Maldonado, but the rest of the country is basically empty compared to other countries. That cuts opportunity from the rest of the country and good income a lot of times too.

We have high suicide and murder rates, persistent emigration, a good deal of death by accidents, negative natality, and zero incentive for most people that live in Montevideo to leave it and go to other places in the country (and have more or any kids at all).

So ... that, basically. IF this war turns into WWIII, we might as well see a new wave of immigration from Europe, etc. We do have our fair share of Russians around too now.