Fertility Transition in Brazil: investigation of the effects of exogenous crises on the recent trends of decline in live births
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20947/S0102-3098a0283Keywords:
Fertility, Natality, Adolescent motherhood, Postponement of fertility, Zika, COVID-19, Economic crisis, Time series analysisAbstract
Brazil has undergone economic and health crises (the Zika Virus epidemic in 2015-2016 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021), which sparked much debate about their potential effects on fertility, which is still in transition. In this article, we investigate instabilities that may signal exogenous shocks using the number of live births from the Live Births Information System (SINASC) and time series analyses controlled for seasonality, trend, and harmonic cycles. The decline in the number of births hides significant age, regional, and educational heterogeneity. Teenagers and young adults, especially those with lower education, experienced a substantial decline, while the number of births to older women has been increasing, which is related to changes in age composition and not completely explained when controlled for trends and seasonality. Analysis of structural breaks reveals that the effect of the Zika Virus epidemics and COVID-19 pandemic was significant but smaller than speculated, given the existing downward trend. Economic cycles seem to be the best explanation for fertility movements over the decade, especially for adult women. However, they do not explain the decline in live births among teenagers and young adult women, which at the beginning of the period may have been linked to ideational changes, and during the COVID-19 pandemic may be explained by the uncertainties following the announcement of the pandemic declaration.
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