Falling mortality has in Latin America failed to reduce family size; this result is not theoretically surprising as reduced mortality makes children cheaper and is expected to reduce fertility but to increase the number of survivors. Development and modernization encouraged family limitation in Western Europe; changes similar in nature have attended the mortality decline in Latin America, but often these changes have been modest in size. Deviations from the Western European transition follow a pattern: least developed countries deviate the most, while most developed countries deviate the least.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
ArriagaE.New Life Tables for Latin American Populations, Population Monograph Series, no. 3, University of California, Berkeley, 1968.
2.
BeckerG. and Lewis“On the Interaction Between the Quantity and Quality of Children,”Journal of Political Economy, No. 2, Part 2, 1973.
3.
CollverO. A.Birth rates in Latin America: New Estimates of Historical Trends and Fluctuations, University of California, Berkeley, Research Series No. 7, 1965.
4.
ConningA. H.“Latin American Fertility Trends and Influencing Factors,”IPU Conference Proceedings, Liege1973.
5.
KeyfitzFlieger, World Population: An Analysis of Vital Data, Chicago University Press, 1968.
6.
MitchellB. R.European Historical Statistics, Columbia University Press, 1975.
