Fertility Decline in Brazil and México: Tempo, Quantum and Parity Composition Effects

Eduardo L.G. Rios-Neto, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and University of Texas at Austin
Adriana Miranda-Ribeiro, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Fertility studies in Brazil and Mexico are, in general, limited to the analysis of traditional measures, most because of the birth registration low quality and the absence of good birth histories. The investigation of alternative measures is becoming more important as fertility reaches lower levels. Miranda-Ribeiro & Rios-Neto present two birth history reconstruction methodologies and determine the one that produces better results to the Brazilian case. This methodology also produced good results when applied to the 2000 Mexican Census. The birth histories data allow the determination of period alternative measures, including those derived from fertility tables and the adjusted measure proposed by the Köhler & Ortega Method. The main purpose of this paper is to create and compare series of period fertility measures for Brazil and Mexico, focused on the study of tempo and parity composition effects.