Volume 34 - Article 29 | Pages 827–844  

The contributions of childbearing within marriage and within consensual union to fertility in Latin America, 1980-2010

By Benoît Laplante, Teresa Castro Martín, Clara Cortina, Ana Laura Fostik

Abstract

Background: Research has shown that the prevalence of unmarried cohabitation has increased in most Latin American countries and that childbearing within consensual union, traditionally confined to low-income groups, is becoming socially acceptable among highly educated women.

Objective: We focus on the increasing importance of childbearing within consensual union for overall fertility. We measure the relative contribution of births within marriage and births within consensual union to period fertility as a component of population change for 13 Latin American countries from 1980 to 2010.

Methods: We use census data and the own-children method to estimate the contribution of marriage and consensual union to age-specific fertility rates, to cumulative fertility, and to the TFR.

Results: In most Latin American countries the contribution of marriage to age-specific fertility rates has decreased over time, whereas the contribution of consensual union has increased steadily. In Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico the contribution of marriage to the TFR is still larger than the contribution of consensual union. In Ecuador and Uruguay they have become roughly similar. In Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela the contribution of consensual union to the TFR is larger than that of marriage.

Conclusions: In Latin America, fertility, as a component of population change, is less and less related to marriage and increasingly linked to consensual union instead.

Comments: We found that not only the contribution of births within consensual union, but also the contribution of out-of-union births to overall fertility has been increasing over time. This is a finding worth investigating further.

Author's Affiliation

• Benoît Laplante - Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Canada EMAIL
• Teresa Castro Martín - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain EMAIL
• Clara Cortina - Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain EMAIL
• Ana Laura Fostik - McGill University, Canada EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Change and continuity in the fertility of unpartnered women in Latin America, 1980–2010
Volume 38 - Article 51

Mixed marriages between immigrants and natives in Spain: The gendered effect of marriage market constraints
Volume 39 - Article 1

Two period measures for comparing the fertility of marriage and cohabitation
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The effect of union dissolution on the fertility of women in Montevideo, Uruguay
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Social policies, separation, and second birth spacing in Western Europe
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Childbearing patterns among immigrant women and their daughters in Spain: Over-adaptation or structural constraints
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The change in single mothers’ educational gradient over time in Spain
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A matter of norms: Family background, religion, and generational change in the diffusion of first union breakdown among French-speaking Quebeckers
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Partnership formation and dissolution among immigrants in the Spanish context
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The reproductive context of cohabitation in comparative perspective: Contraceptive use in the United States, Spain, and France
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Towards a Geography of Unmarried Cohabitation in the Americas
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Single motherhood and low birthweight in Spain: Narrowing social inequalities in health?
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Is Latin America starting to retreat from early and universal childbearing?
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