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INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND
Brazil accounts for one-third of the population of Latin
America, and nearly half that of South America. Its land
area occupies 48 percent of the subcontinent, and is
about equal in size to the United States, excluding
Alaska. The population in 1980 was 120 million, more
than double the 1950 total of 52 million. Starting in
the late nineteenth century, Brazil experienced popula-
tion growth rates in excess of 2 percent per annual with
a peak period of nearly 3 percent during the 1950s.
Since then, the rate of growth has declined, and now
stands at about 2.2 percents Recent CEI`ADE population
projections, which incorporate new information on
declining growth rates, indicate a population of about
185 million for Brazil in the year 2aoo; this means that
about oneothird of the increase in Latin America's
population between now and the end of the century i s
expected to occur in Brazil.
Geography and Population Distribution
Brazil' s geographic position, straddling the equator, has
endowed it with both tropical and subtropical climates.
Rainfall, latitude' and altitude contribute to the
observed climatic conditions, ranging from very hot most
of the year in the tropical rain forests of the Amazon
region to chilly and damp during the Southern winters. A
high plain ( the planalto) encompassing much of the
central Brazilian land mass is ridged by several }ow
mountain chains running in a generally southwest to
northeast direction. The first of these chains Is the
12
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13
coastal escarpment that divides the relatively nar row
coastal plain f rom the inter for . Border ing the planalto
are two large basins that spread out over the terr itory
fed by Brazil's main river systems: the Amazon and its
tr ibutar ies , which cut a wide path as they flow from west
to east just below the equator, and the Parana system,
which flows from north to south to become the Plata River
dividing Argentina and Uruguay. A wide band of lands,
starting at the northeast coast and jutting into the
interior in a southwesterly direction, is known as the
sertao, a semiarid high plain that has suffered many
severe droughts. -~-
Overall population density is low--14 persons per
square kilometer. However , this f igure is deceptive
because of the high population density of the coastal
regions and the very low density of the interior. This
coastal concentration has decreased in recent decades
because of internal migration both to rural areas and to
cities on the agricultural frontier. Brazilian
geographers have divided the country into five major
regions for purposes of social and economic description
(see map). The most populous of these regions is the
Southeast, which accounts for 43 percent of the national
total. Although it occupies only 11 percent of Brazil's
land area, it includes the major urban-industrial centers,
including Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Belo Morizonte.
This region dominates Brazil economically in all sectors,
including agriculture; per capita income is half again as
large as the national average. The second most populous
region is the Northeast, with 29 percent of the total
population and 18 percent of the land area. This is
Brazil's poorest region, with a per capita income less
than half the national average. Periodic droughts in its
sertao region have contributed to its persistent rural
poverty. A third region, the South, holds 16 percent of
Brazil's population and is comparatively prosperous. It
is endowed with good agricultural land, but has less
industry than the Southeast. Droughts and frosts
devastated large areas of the region during the 1970s,
leading to substantial out-migration of rural families
that had settled there during The l9SOs and 1960s. The
two remaining regions, which constitute Brazil's vast
interior, have experienced substantial in-migration
during the last two decades. The Central-West, with 22
percent of the land area, increased its share of total
population from 3 to 6 percent from 1950 to 1980. The
new national capital, Brasilia, is located there. The
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14
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OCR for page 15
15
North, or Amazon, region occupies the largest part of
Brazil ' s land area ( 42 percent) and is the least populated
region ( 5 percent of the total) . Although ambitious (and
unrealistic) plans to resettle large numbers of poor
farmers from the Northeast have been scaled down, hundreds
of thousands of rural migrants from the South, Southeast,
and Central-West regions flooded the territory (now a
state) of Rondonia during the 1970s.
Political and Economic History
Brazil was first settled during the sixteenth century by
the Portuguese who came in search of the gold that lured
the Spanish conquistadores; however, they had to satisfy
themselves with tropical agricultural production along
the Northeastern coastal plain. A sequence of boom-bust
export cycles punctuated the colonial period, beginning
with brazilwood. Sugar production dominated the seven-
teenth century. The plantation system on which it was
based required many unskilled laborers, and with no
indigenous population to exploit, the Portuguese turned
to the African slave markets. During the four centuries
of the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil accounted for 36 per-
cent of the total slave imports. The colonial heritage
of the sla~re-based plantation system left a mark on the
Northeast that even today is an important feature of its
cultural diversity and economic backwardness.
During the eighteenth century, the Northeast drifted
into economic stagnation; the center of gravity of the
world sugar economy shifted to the Caribbean, while the
Brazilian economy came to be dominated by gold and dia-
monds, which were discovered in Minas Gerais and Goias.
Slaves were also employed in mining. Conflicts with
Portugal over taxes on gold production, combined with the
weakening of Portuguese power during the Napoleonic Wars,
led ho independence during the early nineteenth century.
During the nineteenth century, a new export cycle
emerged, based on coffee and dominated by the state of
Sao Paula. Initial attempts to employ slave labor in
coffee production proved unsatisfactory and slavery was
eventually abolished. Paulista planters encouraged
immigration , predominantly from Italy. These immigrants
were able to secure better living conditions and a share
of coffee profits; in fact, upwardly mobile immigrants
and their offspring emerged as the urban industrial and
entrepreneurial classes during Sao Paulo's industrializa-
tion in the twentieth century.
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16
The two world wars and the Depression revealed the
1 iabilities of dependence on exports for economic well
being . As a consequence, Brazil adopted an import-
substituting industrialization strategy during the
1950s. Brazil was more successful than many developing
countries in establishing domestic manufacturing; it had
achieved relative independence in nondurable goods even
before World War II, and moved rapidly toward autonomy in
durables and capital goods thereat ter . lIoweYer, the
success of import substitution also brought problems:
increased regional inequality because of the concentra-
tion of industrial activity in the Southeast; limited
labor absorption because of the comparative capital
intensity of imported manufacturing processes; increased
dependence on foreign capital and petroleum (which Brazil
has to import); and aggravated inequality in the dis-
tribution of income between those who benefited from the
manufacturing boom and the growing masses of unskilled
workers who migrated to the cities hoping to find greater
opportunities.
Import substitution coincided with the period in which
Brazil experienced its most rapid increase in population.
Despite population growth rates of nearly 3 percent, per
capit" income grew at an average annual rate of around S
percent, to stand at a level of about S1,600 by the late
1970~. This put Brazil near the top of so-called middle-
income developing countries. However, as noted above,
this national average masks major inequity in the distri-
bution of income, among regions as well as among indi-
viduals and households. In 1972, the top 10 percent of
households accounted for over 50 percent of household
income, while the lowest 40 percent of households received
only 7 percent. These differentials are echoed in other
measures of welfare, such as infant mortality, access to
public services, and housing conditions. While rapid
population growth did not cause these problems, it surely
aggravated them and does not make the task of overcoming
them any easier.
The postwar period also brought rapid urbanization, as
well as concentration of the urban population in large
cities. The urban population increased from 36 percent
of the total population in 1950 to 67 percent in 1980.
The rural population declined in absolute terms between
1970 and 1980. The state of Sao Paula (21 percent of
Brazil's total population) is now 90 percent urban; the
population of metropolitan Sao Paula was 12.6 million in
1980, more than half of the state population.
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Changes in Brazil' s social and economic structure,
combined with increased inf ration and unemployment as the
initial momentum of import substitution subsided, brought
political turmoil and led to a military takeover in 1964.
The military has traditionally played the role of arbiter
in Brazilian politics, but their last intervention has
been the most pervasive. Although there is currently a
movement toward a return to civilian rule, the path is
far from clear. Economic problems that have plagued
Brazil since the midol970s and that dominate the current
economic and political arena may play a key role. During
the late 1960s, a combination of hard-handed military
rule and civilian technical expertise restored stability
to the Brazilian economy, with annual growth of industrial
output exceeding 10 percent. One price for this stabil-
ization program was deterioration of ache earning power of
lower-income groups; another was increased foreign debt.
Then came the energy crisis, which inflated the cost of
almost everything that Brazil imported, including the oil
on which the economy was heavily dependent. Increased
borrowing has put Brazil at the top of the list of
indebted countries with a debt of over S60 billion; the
cost of managing this debt adds further to balance-of-
payments and inflationary pressures.
While social programs have not been a top priority of
the military governments, they have not been neglected.
During the past two decades, Brazil has invested in
ambitious programs to increase access to public services
and education, with a steady and sometimes Impressive
progress. Enrollment of the primary school population
increased from 54 percent in 1955 to 85 percent In 1974,
and secondary enrollment ratios rose from 3.7 percent in
1960 to 16.6 percent in 1976. The government has also
sponsored a large-scale adult literacy program, as well
as other types of adult education. Coverage of the urban
population by social insurance (which includes basic
health services) increased from 43 percent in 1960 to 79
percent in 1975. A National Mousing Bank was established
to f inance low~income housing and urban services. Access
to piped water in urban areas increased from 16 percent
in 1950 to 68 percent in 1976, with much of the increase
coming after 1970 under a national water and sanitation
program. The cost of these programs has put further
strain on the government budget; payroll taxes were
recently increased to ease this budget pressure, exacer-
bating political tensions.
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~8
RECENT DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS
Population Trends
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Brazilian
population numbered about three and one-third million;
two million were either slaves or former slaves who had
been manumitted. By 1900, the population was nearly 18
million, with recent European immigrants representing an
increasingly important group. Cultural and ethnic diver-
s ity, an important dimension of the Brazilian social
structure, has proved difficult to measure in standard
~ tatistics O Complex patterns of interracial Barr iage and
self-declaration of race in four categor ies (white, black,
yellow, and mixed) in Brazilian censuses led to such
skepticism about the validity of the data that the ques
tion was abandoned in 1970. Though the question was
reintroduced in 1980, there is a major void in data on
the ethnic aspects of Brazil' s recent demographic history.
The demographic components of Brazil' s population
increase since 1940 are summarized in Table 1, which
present" estimates of crude birth and death rates and the
rate of population growth. The table indicates an
increase in average annual growth rate from 2.39 percent
in the 1940s to 2.99 percent in the l950So This resulted
from the combination of a virtually constant birth rate
and a 30 percent decline in the death rate, along with a
limited amount of immigration. The growth rate declined
slightly during the 1960s, and more rapidly during the
1970~; the reason for this accelerated decline during the
1970s was a more rapid decline in the birth rate of about
17 percent from 1960-70 to 1970~80.
TABLE 1 Components of Population Growth, 1940-80: Brazil
Average
Annual Rate Crude Crude Rate of
of Population Birth Death Natural
Per iod Increase Rate Rate Increase
1940-50 20 39 44 20 24
1950-60 2.99 43 14 29
1960-70 2.89 41 13 2B
1970-80 2.48 34 9 25
Sources: 1940-70 from Merrick and Graham (1979:Table III.5);
1910-80, see text.
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As with other features of Brazilian economic and social
history, these national-leve' data mask important regional
differentials. The pace of change in both mortality and
fertility has var fed substantially between the more
urbanized Southeast and the rest of Brazil, most str ik-
ingly in comparison with the Northeast. Both the level
and timing of such regional dif ferentials can be clar i-
f fed by more ref ined measures of fertility and mortality,
the total fertility rate, and the expectation of life at
birth .
The main sources of national- and regional-level data
on fertility and mortality rates in Brazil are the
decennial censuses and the national sample surrey program
(Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios--PNAD).
Though Brazil started to collect vital statistics at the
national level in 1974, coverage is still not adequate to
permit assessment of national levels and trends (Altmann
and Ferreira, 1979). However, starting with the 1940
census, Brazil began reporting the number of children
ever born and the number of children surviving by age of
mother. A question on the number of births in the year
pr for to the interview was added in the 1970 census, and
was continued in sample surreys taken in 197 2 through
197S. In 1976, this question was modified to specify the
date of the last live birth, a procedure that was also
used in the 1980 census (see Leite, 1981 :Table 1) .
Brazilian demographers, and more recently the Panel on
Brazil of the Committee on Population and Demography,
National Academy of Sciences, have derived estimates of
fertility and mortality from these data using indirect
estimating techniques. The panel based its estimates on
the census data for 1940-70 and the PNAD survey data
thereafter. As the present report was being written,
preliminary tabulations of the 1980 census became avail-
able. These tabulations are based on an approximately
one-percent sample of questionnaires processed in advance
of the definitive tabulations, which are scheduled to
appear on a state-by-state basis. Where possible, esti-
mates based on these preliminary results are introduced.
The Panel's fertility and mortality estimates for 1950-76
are reported in Tables 2 and 3, and detailed discussion
of data sources and measurement techniques is presented
in their report (National Academy of Sciences, 1979).
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National and Regional Trends in the Total Fertility Rate
Table 2 presents data on national and regional trends in
total fertility rates. The PNAD samples, which are the
on, y source of regional data during the 1970-80 inter-
censal interval, are based on a somewhat dif ferent
reg tonal breakdown than the one descr ibed above becaus e
of sampling requirements.
There are seven PNAD reg ions:
the Amazon and Central-Western regions are combined in a
region referred to as Frontier States ( 7 ), though only
their urban population is included in the PNAD surveys;
Brasilia is a separate region ~ 6 ); Rio de Janeiso ( 1),
Sao Paulo (2), and Micas Gerais/Espirito Santo (4) are
broken out of the Southeastern group and reported as
separate regions; and the Northeastern (5) and Southern
(3) regions are maintained For consistency, the report
of the Panel on Brazil regrouped census data into PHAD
regions, which are also shown in Tables 2 and 3.
At the national level, total fertility was nearly
constant prior to 1960, and declined by about 6 percent
dur ing the 1960s. There was a marked acceleration in
fertility decline during the 1970-76 interval, when total
fertility fell by 24 percent, although the indirect
measures make it difficult to determine when the acceler-
ation actually started. The report of the Parcel also
TABLE: 2 Total Fertility Rates, 1950-80: Brazil
and PNAD Regions
.
Region L950 1960 L970 1916 1980
1. Rio de Janeiro 4.42 4.34 3091 2092 2.65
2. Sao Paula 4.52 4.49 4.07 3c17 3.13
3. Southern States 5.96 S.75 5.48 4.20 3.47
4. Mirlas Gerais/
Espirita Santo 6.90 6.98 6031 4.54 4.11
5. Northeastern States 7. S2 7. SO 1. 58 6.30 S. 71
6. Brasilia -- ~ 5.52 3.83 3.63
7. Frontier States 7.14 1. 32 7.08 -- 5.07
Brazil: Total 6. 32 6.18 5. B3 4.44 4.10
Urban 4.68 ~ 4.61 3.48 3.47
Rural 1.70 ~ 7071 6.36 5.83
.
Note: -- indicates that da" were not available.
Sources: National Research Council (1983). Estimates for 1950 and 1960 are
based on Carvalho's (1913) variant of the Brass method, which utilized the P/P
ratio for women aged 20-29 as discussed in the text; eati~tes for 1570, 1976,
and 1980 are based on National Academy of Sciences' variant of Me Brass
method, which employs the average of P/F ratios for women aged 20-24 and 25-29.
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provides estimates of total fertility based on the own-
children method which suggest that total fertility in
1969-70 was lower than 5.8. In all likelihood, the
decline in the national total fertility rate accelerated
in the late 1960s.
This national trend once again masks major regional
differentials. The transition to lower fertility was
already well underway in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo
during the 1950s, with total fertility nearly 2 children
per woman lower than the national average by 19700 A
more gradual decline was underway in the Southern states
and in Minas Gerais/Espirito Santo. In contrast, fertil-
ity in the Northeast and in the Frontier states was high,
possibly increasing, before 1970. Regional differentials
increased during the 1950-70 period, but declines in the
Southeast were not great enough to have ~ significant
impact on the national trend. In the rural-urban break-
down, there was little change from 1950 to 1970 in
either; this suggests that the limited national decline
resulted in large part from the increased weight of the
urban population in the total.
The 1970-76 per iod brought accelerated declines In all
regions. In the Southern and Southeastern regions, rates
fell by 22-28 percent, with the greatest decline occurring
in region (4) (Mines Gerais/Espir~to Santa). While the
decline In the Northeast was less--17 percent--it signaled
an important increase in the spread of accelerated fer-
tility decline. At the same tome, the Northeast-Southeast
differential increased. Since rates of decline in the
Southeastern states have reached comparatively low levels,
continuation of the national trend will depend to a large
extent on the pace at which Northeastern states catch upe
Estimates based on preliminary tabulations of the 1980
census indicate that the trend observed for the 1970076
period continued during 1976-80, though at a slower pace.
The 1980 total fertility rate for Brazil, 4.11, is 7.7
percent less than the 4.44 recorded in 1976 and 29.7
percent less than the 1970 rate of 5.83. Total fertility
in the Southern region declined most (17.7 percent)
during 1976-80, making this the region with the largest
overall decline (36.7 percent) over the decade e Region
( 4) (Mines Gerais/Espirito Santo) ranked second in
1976-80, with 9 . ~ percent, and alas' second for the
decade, with 34.9 percent. It is significant that the
Northeast, which ranked last during the 1970-76 interval,
was third in 1976-80 with a 9.4 percent decline, since
this suggests that the spread of fertility decline to the
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Northeast has continued and even accelerated. For the
decade, this put the Northeast just ahead of sac Paulo,
which had a very small decline ( 1. 3 percent ) dur ing
1976-80 and ranked last for the decade with 23.1 percent.
Both Rio de Janeiro and the Frontier states were within a
point or two of the national average, suggesting that
omission of rural areas of the Frontier from the 1976
results probably did not bias the rate reported for
Brazil at that date.
A surprising feature of the 1980 results is that they
indicate that ferti] itv decline during the 1976080 Derived
was limited to rural areas; total fertility for urban
areas was practically unchanged over that interval O Thi s
— — _
~ —
raises a number or questions, to wnlan the limited data
published in the preliminary tabulations provide very few
answers. One of these questions relates to the reliabil-
ity of the sample frame on which the 1976 survey was
based. It may be that the ~Brazil" sampled in the 1976
survey underrepresented groups that experienced slower
fertility decline, leading to an overstatement of the
decline from 1910 to 1976 and an understatement of the
decline from 1976 to 1980. If this was not the case,
there is an even more interesting question of why urban
fertility decline accelerated (to 24.5 percent) during
the early 1970s and dropped to zero at the end of the
decade. Was there a baby .boomlet. during the late
1970s? Clearly, we need a thoroughgoing assessment of
the representativeness of the PNAD surveys, as well as a
comparison of the advanced tabulations against the
def into ire 1980 census results. Although both of these
tasks run well beyond the scope of this report, they have
major implications for the present analysis of trends in
the 1970s, which relies heavily on data from the 1976
survey.
Expectation of Life at Birth
Table 3 presents estimates of national and reg tonal
trends in the expectation of life at birth. In contrast
with total fertility, there is a substantial increase (26
percent) in life expectancy at the national level. There
are also important regional differentials, with the North-
east lagging behind the rest of the country by about 10
years of life expectancy; using the ratio of Sao Paulo to
the Northeast as an index, the relative dif ference was
about 27 percent. While all regions experienced increased
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TABLE 3 Expectation of Life at Birth, 1950-76: Brazil
and PNAD Reg ions
Region 1950 1960 1970 1976
1. Rio de Janeiro 48.7 60.3 60.3 68.5
2. Sao Paulo 49.2 60.3 61.6 6701
3. Southern States 51.5 61.2 62~8 66.5
4. Minas Gerais/
Espirito Santo 46~9 5502 5804 6500
5. Northeastern States 38.5 410 6 48 0 3 520 6
6 . Brasilia ~ 58.0 67 0 4
7 . Frontier States 47 0 8 S6.9 59.-7 -a
Brazil: Total 4407 5204 5603 6101
Urban 43 0 8 -- 560 6 610 6
Rural 45.1 -- 56.0 57.5
-
Note: -- indicates that data were not available.
Source: National Research Council (1983).
life expectancy during the 1950-70 interval, this pattern
of regional dif f erentials remained constant.
The pace of improvement in life expectancy increased
during 1970-76. At the national level, it increased by 5
years in a 6-year per iod, compared to a 12-year increase
over the previous 20 years. Percentage increases in Sao
Paulo and the Northeast were about equal (9 percent), but
Rio de Janeiro increased by nearly 14 percent. The pat-
tern of rural-urban differentials shifted from a slight
advantage for rural areas in 1950 to a slight advantage
for urban areas in 1970, and a widening spread between
urban and rural areas between 1970 and 1976.
Income Class Differences in Fertility and Mortality
Socioeconomic differences in fertility and mortality are
another important dimension of recent Brazilian demo-
graphic trends, though there are fewer data with which to
document them. Working with special tabulations of the
1970 census, Carvalho and Paiva (1976) reported a differ-
ential of over 4 children per woman in comparing total
fertility rates for high- and low-income families. Their
results are sugar ized in the top half of Table 4. For
Brazil, total fertility in the 1-150 Crusiero per month
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24
TABLE 4 Income Class Differences in Total Fertility Rates
and the Expectation of Life at Birth, 1970: Brazil and
Selected States
Average Monthly Household Income (cruzeiros)
Region
Total Fertility Rates
1-150 151-300 301-500 500+
Central Northeasta 8. S5 8.15 6.28 3. 95
Minas Gerais/Espir ito
Santo 8. 03 8.50 7.27 4 O 62
Rio de Janeiro 6.23 S.43 4O40 2.71
Sao Paulo 5.93 5. 3S 4 O 50 2.93
Santa Catarina/Rio
Grande do Sul 6 O 08 5. 79 4 .97 3 . 25
Brazil 7.54 6.72 5.37 3.28
Urban 7.03 5O95 4.84 3.10
Rural ?.81 7.99 7.70 S.86
Expectation of Life at Birth
Central Northeasta 43.8 46.1 50.3 54. 4
Minas Gerais/Bapizito
Santa 53~ 8 55.4 58.6 620 3
Ric, de Janeiro 54 e 1 54 . 8 57 0 6 62 0 1
Sao Paulo 54.7 5601 58.7 6309
Santa Catarina/Rio
Grande do Sul 60.5 61.2 6304 66.9
Brasil 49.9 54.5 57.6 620 0
Urban 46.0 53. ~ 57. 6 620 2
Rural 51. 4 55.9 57. 6 60 0 0
aCeara, Rio Grande do Norte, Parnaiba, Perna=~uco (including Fernando
de NoronhaI, and Alagoas.
Sources: Total fertility rates from Carvalho and Paive (1976);
expectation of life at birth from Carvalho and Wood (1978).
group was 7.54, compared to 3.28 for women in the 501
Cruxiero and over group. Their data also reveal
rural-urban and regional differentials within income
classes: rural-urban differences increase with income,
from less than one child to nearly tree children; in
contrast, regional differences narrow fusing the Central
Northeast and Sao Paulo as illustrative cases) from 2.6
to 1.1 children.
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25
Equally dramatic mortality differentials were found.
Using the same tabulations, Carvalho and Wood (1978)
noted a striking 20-year differential between the life
expectancy of low-income families in the Central North-
east and that of high-income families in Sac Paula, and
an even greater difference when the Northeast was com-
pared to the Southern states of Santa Catar ina and Rio
Grande do Sul. Their results, summarized in the bottom
half of Table 4, also suggest that for low-incoTee houses
holds, life expectancy was higher in rural than in urban
areas. However, caution is required in interpreting this
difference since the income figures do not include income
in kind, which was higher in rural areas; thus the true
level of living among these groups may have been under-
stated. In contrast to the fertility differentials,
regional differentials in mortality were maintained at
about 10 years as income increased, while rural-urban
differences narrowed. Both sets of differentials high-
light the importance of underlying socioeconomic variables
in the regional differentials observed during the 1950-70
period; attention to changes in these variables will
therefore be important in explaining the acceleration in
Brazil's fertility decline after 1970.
PURPOSE AND STRUCTURE OF THIS REPORT
What changes could account for the accelerated fertility
decline in Brazil since 1970? The evidence presented
thus far suggests that a major factor was the spread of
fertility decline after 1970 to new regions and socio°
economic groups, together with continued decline among
those already affected. The objective of the present
report is to examine this acceleration in greater detail.
The discussion therefore focuses on some specific ques-
tions about what may have happened in the post-1970
per iod; it is not intended to be an exhaustive study of
longer-term trends and differentials.
As noted above, the main sources of national-level
data used here are the public use sample of the 1970
census of population and the 1976 PNAD national household
survey. Both of these sources provide information on
such socioeconomic characteristics as marital status,
migration, rural-urban residence, income, and education ;
they also provide the data on births and surviving
children needed to make indirect estimates of fertility
and mortality. They do not include questions on contra-
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26
ception and other proximate variables, nor are other
natzonal-level survey data on these variables available.
State-level data are found in reports of the Contracep~
tive Prevalence Surveys (CPS, conducted by Brazil 'S
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
affiliate, Sociedade Civil Bem-Estar Familiar no Brasil
(BEMFAM), with the cooperation of the U.S. Center for
Disease Control; six such surveys were available when the
report was prepared tSao Paulo, Pisui, Rio Grande do
Norte, Pernambuco, Paraiba, and Bahia). Local case study
data on the proximate variables were assembled for the
Centro Brasileiro de Analise e Planejament (REWRAP)
National Investigation on Began Reproduction (NIHR),
which is examined in detail in Part II.
This study is organized as follows. Following the
summary, Part I concentrates primarily on national-level
data. Chapter 1 uses national census and survey data on
fertility and nuptiality, together with CPS state-level
data on contraception, abortion, and breastfeeding, to
decompose recant fertility declines into the proximate
determinants of fertility; this analysis is based on the
standardization approach to decomposition of changes an
the national level. In Chapter 2, national data are used
to identify the level and amount of change in socio
economic fertility differentials from 1970 to 1976. Chap-
ter 3 examines hypotheses about links between changes in
the prox ~ te determinants and socioeconomic conditions
in Brazil during the early 1970s, as well as national-
level empirical evidence relating to these hypotheses.
Chapter 4 uses multivariate regression analysis to
clarify links between changing socioeconomic conditions
and changes in average parity, with reference to the
analytical questions raised in the previous chapter.
Although Part I makes some reference to relevant
local-level HIRE findings, its primary focus, as noted
above, is at the national level. Part II of this report
focuses specifically on the NIHR to provide a more con-
centrated analysis of Brazilian fertility. Chapter 5
describes the purpose and methodology of the NIGER.
Chapter 6 summarizer fertility levels and trends for the
contexts studied, which are described in detail in the
Appendix. Chapter 7 presents a discussion of local
trends in nuptiality, including variations in union to pe
and age at marriage. Chapter 8 examines data related to
declining marital fertility, while Chapters 9 and 10
analyze the role of the proximate determinants and
socioeconomic variables ~ specifically family income,
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respectively, in that decline. Finally, Chapter 11
presents some conclusions about Brazil's accelerated
fertility decline based on the NIHR data. It is hoped
that together, the broader and more focused perspectives
offered in this report will provide a balanced
understanding of Brazil's recent fertility trends.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
fertility decline
