Influences Affecting Fertility in Urban and Rural Latin America

Abstract

Preliminary results of recent surveys on fertility in rural and small urban areas in Latin America are compared with the results of previous surveys which concentrated on large Latin American cities. The large urban areas are Buenos Aires Mexico City Rio de Janeiro Bogota Caracas Panama and San Jose Costa Rica. The rural-small urban areas are Cauquenes-Chanco and Mostazal Chile; Cartagena and Neira Colombia; and Guelavia-Teotitlan and Pabellon Mexico. Although there are large differences in fertility among urban areas and to a lesser extent among rural-small urban areas there is a significant difference between urban and rural-small urban fertility as measured by average number of live births. No definite conclusions can be drawn between nuptial patterns and fertility levels. At best it can be said that fertility tends to be higher for consensually marrieds in cities with a higher proportion of common law marriages. There is a clearcut difference between the education level of urban and rural-small urban women and this shows up in fertility levels with illiterates having the highest fertility. The largest difference occurs at the completed primary level; differences for secondary and higher levels are much less marked and in some cities there is even a slight upturn at the university level. In urban areas fertility tends to decrease as the occupational status of the husband increases. In rural-small urban areas agricultural workers particularly lower level ones tend to have more children. In the cities there is a trend toward higher fertility among nonworking women; in the rural-small urban areas no clearcut differences in fertility exist perhaps because work in these areas is often done in the home and strongly linked to traditional modes of life. In the urban areas there is a much greater incidence of contraceptive use and to some extent this runs parallel with lower fertility. However the data does not distinguish between the effectiveness of different methods or the regularity with which they are used. The use of contraception increases with educational level.