unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (08/23/89)
THE PILL, THE ECONOMY, AND TV DEFUSE BRAZIL POPULATION BOMB Brazil's fertility rate, once considered a population ``time bomb,'' has been cut in half over the past two decades--a decrease that could result in the country's ending this century with a population of 170 million, or 50 million fewer than experts had predicted 10 years ago. The drop in the fertility rate--from 5.75 children per woman in 1970 to 3.2 today--has been attributed to such diverse factors as the increased use of contraceptives, economic stagnation, and nationwide access to television. The use of birth control, for example, has increased dramatically since 1965 when 5% of fertile married women used contraceptives, compared with two-thirds of married women today. Another factor in the reduction of the fertility rate is the nation's floundering economy. With the stagnation of the average Brazilian's income in the 1980s, many families have found themselves unable to afford more children. Television, now universally available in Brazil, also has been cited by social scientists as contributing to the decline in the fertility rate by exposing its viewers to new values and standards. ``Television transmits images, attitudes, values and habits of a modern, urban, industrial and middle-class Brazil,'' wrote George Martine, a demographer, in Ciencia Hoje, a Brazilian science journal. One of the televised images he cited as affecting social habits was that of a ``divorce between sexuality and procreation.'' Marcio Ruiz Schiavo of Bemfam, Brazil's largest family planning group, added that the popular televised soap operas ``very rarely show couples with lots of children...when they do, the families are poor and miserable...'' The decline in Brazil's fertility rate has been accompanied by similar decreases in Colombia and Mexico. The difference is that in these Latin American countries, the drop was due in large part to strong government-backed family-planning programs. In Brazil, the government, as well as the Catholic Church, has mainly steered clear of the issue. THE NEW YORK TIMES August 8,1989 p.1. (Compiled from Newspapers and Medical Journals for IMTS's Healthweek In Review.) * Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501) --- Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange -=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-