Social and demographic determinants of low fertility in Brazil

Brazil has experienced a rapid demographic transition, going from an estimated TFR of 6.28 children per woman in 1960 to 1.90 in 2010 (IBGE 2012). In this dissertation, I explore the social and demographic determinants of low fertility in the country. The first study analyzes the association of human development, gender equality, and work-childrearing support environment with the likelihood of having a birth in 1991, 2000, and 2010. The results show a declining relative importance of the Human Development Index (HDIm) with time, while the gender equality and work-childrearing support environment increase its relative importance. The emergence of these associations in 2000 and 2010 is likely to be driven by a rise in the share of professional and managerial females in the labor market. In the second study, I explore the extent in which childbearing is a constraint on the employment of mothers with young children in Brazil. Specifically, I test whether an exogenous increase in public child care centers between 2007 and 2009 is associated with an increase in labor force participation and hours worked of mothers with the youngest child aged four or less. The results indicate that the increase in child care availability had a positive impact on female labor force participation and hours worked, specially for married mothers with lower levels of education attainment. The third study assess the plausibility of a demographic technique, the P/F Brass method, used to estimate Brazil’s official TFR. The method increased the TFRs observed in Census Surveys by approximately 12% in 1991, 10% in 2000, and 19% in 2010. Because of the dramatic fertility decline in Brazil in the age groups of 15-19 and 20-24, specially in 2010, and the violation of the stable population assumption, I conclude that the Brass method should no longer be used when estimating the official TFR in the country. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Demography First Advisor Hans-Peter Kohler Subject Categories Demography, Population, and Ecology | Sociology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/edissertations/1673 SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC DETERMINANTS OF LOW FERTILITY IN BRAZIL Helena Cruz Castanheira A DISSERTATION in Demography and Sociology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Supervisor of Dissertation __________________________________ Hans-Peter Kohler F.J. Warren Professor of Demography and Professor of Sociology Graduate Group Chairperson, Demography Graduate Group Chairperson, Sociology __________________________________ ____________________________________ Michel Guillot, Associate Prof. of Sociology Emily Hannum, Associate Prof. of Sociology Dissertation Committee Hans-Peter Kohler, F.J. Warren Professor of Demography and Professor of Sociology Emilio A. Parrado, Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology Kristen Harknett, Associate Professor of Sociology SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC DETERMINANTS OF LOW FERTILITY IN BRAZIL COPYRIGHT 2015 Helena Cruz Castanheira This work is licensed under the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ny-sa/2.0/