Diverging patterns of fertility decline in Uruguay

Abstract

1. IntroductionThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the changes in the level and timing of fertility in Uruguay between 1996 and 2011, using period fertility measures by birth order. The analysis of the evolution of fertility trends by birth order can contribute to the understanding of the three main processes in the transition towards a low-fertility setting: the reduction of higher-order births through parity-specific fertility control, the increase in the proportion of women who remain childless throughout their reproductive years, and the postponement of childbearing. Each one of these processes is closely related to the others and together they typically cause the decline of the conventional period total fertility rate (TFR).With some exceptions (Batyra 2015; Miranda-Ribeiro, Rios-Neto, and Ortega 2008; Rios-Neto and Miranda-Ribeiro 2015), the analysis of the recent decline in the TFR in Latin American countries has relied exclusively on data on births by age of the mother. While several European and North American countries have long series of data on birth counts by both age of the mother and birth order, they are rare to find in Latin America countries with the exceptions of Chile, Costa Rica, and - recently - Uruguay (Lima et al. 2015; Rosero-Bixby, Castro-Martin, and Martin Garcia 2009).For this study we constructed the 1996-2011 series of births by age of the mother and birth order by using individual birth registers from the Live Birth Certificate and the Perinatal Information System of Uruguay, and estimated age- and birth-orderspecific fertility rates and summary measures of timing and quantum of fertility. We analyzed this set of indicators to demonstrate the extent of family limitation, childlessness, and postponement in the evolution of fertility for synthetic cohorts during the recent decline of the period TFR in Uruguay.Studying fertility by birth order may allow a more rigorous analysis of the demographic components of recent changes in fertility and the construction of new measures will allow the comparison of fertility decline in Uruguay with those of other, mostly European countries.As seen in several developed countries, a shift in the timing of childbearing can inflate or deflate the conventional period TFR (Bongaarts and Sobotka 2012). In a recent work, Pardo and Cabella (2014) estimated tempo-adjusted (TFR*) and tempoand parity-adjusted (TFRp*) total fertility rates for Uruguay for the years 1996-2011. They found that TFR decreased almost entirely by quantum decline, as the tempo effect only accounted for TFR change through a peak in the 3-4 worst years of the economic crisis that hit the country between 1998 and 2004 and a mild increase in the last years. In this paper we also apply tempo-adjusted period fertility indicators to compare their trends with the developments in the conventional period TFR, examining to what extent the two differed over time and how sizeable the recent impact of the tempo effect on Uruguayan TFR is. Furthermore, the use of the tempo- and parity-adjusted measures of quantum fertility by birth order would allow breaking down changes in tempo-adjusted fertility into their birth order components, possibly providing more accurate evidence on the role of parity-specific fertility declines in the observed changes in period fertility.The structure of the article is as follows. First, it provides some background on fertility decline in Latin America and the Caribbean, and specifically Uruguay. Then, the context of extensive socioeconomic and family change within which it has taken place is discussed. Next, the data and methods used are described and fertility level and timing by birth order are reported, including conditional age-specific fertility rates by birth order and summary measures on both dimensions. Finally, mean age at first birth and its standard deviation in Uruguay is compared with those of other selected countries and some final remarks are made. …