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  • Title: [The demographic transition in Latin America and Europe].
    Author: Zavala De Cosio ME.
    Journal: Notas Poblacion; 1992 Dec; 20(56):11-32. PubMed ID: 12287032.
    Abstract:
    This work describes and analyzes the "European model of demographic transition" and compares it to the fertility transition in Latin America, arguing that two different types of demographic transition coexist in Latin America. Chesnais has defined 3 principal postulates of the theory of demographic transition that he believes are universally valid: the precedence in time of mortality decline; the occurrence of reproductive transition in 2 phases, limitation of marriages followed by limitation of births; and the influence of economic growth on the initiation of the secular fertiilty decline. This work is largely limited to discussion of the first 2 postulates. In all the European transitions analyzed, mortality has declined before the occurrence of fertility changes. Exceptions cited in the literature have probably been caused by omissions or other problems in the data. The level of mortality at the beginning of the transition and the rate of decline differ, giving unique character to each transition. Imbalances resulting from mortality decline are at the root of modern fertility transitions. The French demographic transition was distinguished by early appearance of birth limitation by married couples, as part of the regulation of population growth. In the rest of Europe, during the pretransitional period, the traditional system of reproduction was regulated primarily by control of nuptiality. Only at a second stage was marital fertiity controlled, when limitation of marriage was no longer sufficient or had exceeded the limits of social acceptability. All countries of Northern and Western Europe recorded increased proportions definitively single as the demographic situation began to change, until the moment when couples began to limit births. The demographic transition in Latin America began at the end of the 19th century, with mortality decline. Fertility increased initially in Latin America as it had in Europe and for the same reasons, but the impact was greater in Latin America because of the much more rapid mortality decline. In Latin America, in the face of the fertility increase of the mid-20th century, there was no attempt to control nuptiality, as in traditional European populations, to limit family size. Nuptiality control as a mechanism of demographic regulation was never socially acceptable in Latin America. The beginning of the Latin American transition occurred in urban areas, among more educated women who were over 20 years old at marriage. The fertility transition in these privileged sectors was quite similar to that in Europe. But a second transition has occurred among impoverished women conserving traditional reproductive patterns of early marriage and numerous closely spaced births. Availability of modern contraception among rural and marginal urban women has allowed termination of childbearing, but usually at relatively high levels of fertility. Fertility decline, in this case, does not reflect improvements in living conditions.
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