What are Ecuador’s biggest changes in last 50 years?

When a journalist recently asked priest Father Mikel of Los Ríos Province what the biggest change he had seen in his rural community in the past 50 years, he didn’t hesitate. “Motorcycles have replaced horses,” he said.

Motorcycles have replaced horses in rural areas of Ecuador.

He explained that motorization has not only changed transportation but transformed the nature of farm work as well. “It may seem like a simple thing to those who live in urban areas, but here in the countryside the change is huge,” he said. “A trip that required four hours on horseback to see a sick parishioner, now takes me 30 minutes, and the time it takes to bring cows in from the pasture has been reduced by half.”

Over the past five decades, rural areas Ecuador have seen “revolutionary change”, according to Mikel. The expansion of infrastructure, access to basic services and the generation of new economic and social opportunities have made life easier, he says. “There have been things lost as well, like the closeness of families but this is an inevitable part of modernization. Within little more than a generation, a way of life that lasted hundreds of years has changed forever.”

Statistics provided by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) offers an overview of changes since 1975.

Fifty years ago, Ecuador had 7,000 kilometers of paved roads while today it has 34,000 kilometers.

In 1975, 12% of the population had electricity. Today the total is 95%

In 1975, 5% of households had access to safe drinking water. In 2025, the percentage is 51% in rural areas and 81% in cities.

In 1975, 2.5% of households were connected to central sewer systems. Today, the percentage is 40% in rural areas and 86.8% in urban areas.

In 1975, the average schooling of rural residents was 2.8 years and 7.7 years for urban residents. Today, the numbers are 7.3 and 11.5 years, respectively.

Chronic child malnutrition was 46% nationally 50 years ago. Today, it is 22% in the rural sectors and 17.6% in the urban areas.