Recent trends in Latin American fertility

Summary

Clear and decisive declines in fertility in several Latin American and Caribbean countries may be signalling changes in long-standing fertility patterns in the region. The role of social and economic development in this decline is not clear and is further complicated by the emergence of organized family-planning programmes. Though in most of the countries in which falls began earliest (Barbados, Chile, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and Trinidad) birth control programmes also began early, in three of the five instances these programmes were initiated only after the declines had started. A case study of Costa Rica leads to the conclusion that fertility decline there was preceded by marked increases in the proportion of young people completing primary school; that the change was initiated by young married couples living in cantons in which literacy was high and agriculture was declining, and that after the national family-planning programme had been introduced, fertility also tended to fall in regions of comparatively low literacy and little agricultural change. Thus, the national programmes may have accelerated the decline by bringing it to geographical areas and individuals on the fringes of development. The entire process was probably facilitated by certain cultural factors: Costa Rica's more liberal legislation with respect to the commercial distribution of contraceptives, and the greater freedom of Costa Rican women to communicate with their husbands about contraception. The most recent fertility declines, in Colombia, and probably in Mexico, underscore the important role of organized family-planning programmes.

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Notes on contributors

J. Mayone Stycos

I am grateful for comments on a draft of this paper from Roger C. Avery, Michael R. Haines, and Axel I. Mundigo, and for the research assistance of Virginia Miralao, Khawja Huda, and Eileen Driscoll