Educational pairings and fertility decline in Brazil: An analysis using cohort fertility

Abstract

Brazil’s fertility transition was the result of multiple socioeconomic transformations thatstarted during the second quarter of the 20th century. Education expansion played animportant role in this process by promoting changes in social norms and in assortativemating profiles.OBJECTIVEThe goal is to estimate cohort fertility rates (CFR) of women in union by educationalpairing (different combinations of men’s and women’s educational levels) and whetherchanges observed in assortative mating profiles were associated to the Brazilian cohortfertility transition.METHODSFirst, we estimate CFR by educational pairings for women cohorts born between 1925and 1969. Second, we decompose the difference in CFR between younger and oldercohorts into two components, the effects of changes in the composition of educationalpairings (structural changes) and the rate effects (other factors).RESULTSThe CFR of couples in Brazil declined from levels higher than 6 children per women forcohorts born in 1925–1929, to less than 3 children for women born in 1965–1969.Changes in the composition of educational pairing corresponded to approximately onethirdof these reductions in cohort fertility. CONCLUSIONSThese results suggest that changes in the composition of educational pairing related tothe rising education levels of men and women corresponded to an important share of thecohort fertility decline of women in unions.CONTRIBUTIONThe evaluation of the Brazilian fertility transition through the lens of cohort fertility andeducational pairings may provide new insights and methodological alternatives forassessing fertility transition in countries that rely on censuses as the main data source forfertility estimation.