diffusion of modern contraception methods explained the decrease in fertility in Latin America after 1965, as family planning programs were established in the majority of countries, making it possible to meet the demand for birth control on the part of educated, economically active women living in large cities, with high standards of living (Cosio Zavala 1992). The use of modern contraception methods spread rapidly in these well-situated social categories, which followed the path of the societies that started the modern contraceptive revolution (Leridon and Toulemon 2002).
However, for disadvantaged social categories, a different fertility transition model took place, in the form of a late and rapid decrease. Until 1985, the poorest and least educated populations maintained high fertility, between five and six children per woman, as in Bolivia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Paraguay (United Nations 2019a, Fert/4). Then, their fertility dropped extremely quickly. Malthusian poverty came about when disadvantaged families had to limit their births in order to be able to survive given that modern contraception methods were widely available to them:
Far from conveying a harmonious social development, this stresses the bankruptcy of the economic model, the deterioration of the living standards and the effects of the crisis which dramatically hit the most disadvantaged social strata, while an abundant parallel offer of family planning services were developing. (Cosio Zavala 1998, p. 67)
In Table 1.4, we present a summary of the Latin American transitions in mortality and fertility, in 2015–2020, resulting in 10 differentiated groups depending on the different combinations.
Table 1.4. Latin American and Caribbean countries according to mortality and fertility transitions (2015–2020)
(source: United Nations 2019a; Tables Mort/7-1 and Fert/4)22
| Mortality transitions | Fertility transitions | ||||
| Highly advanced TFR < 2.0 | Advanced TFR = 2.0 | Major 2.4 ≥ TFR > 2.1 | Moderate TFR = 2.5 | In progress TFR > 2.5 | |
| Advanced Eo≥ 78 years | Chile 80/1.7 Costa Rica 80/1.8 Cuba 79/1.6 | Uruguay 78/2.0 | Panama 78/2.5 | ||
| Average 78 years <E0 ≥ 75 years | Brazil 76/1.7 Colombia 77/1.8 | Argentina 76/2.3 Ecuador 77/2.4 Mexico 75/2.1 Peru 76/2.3 | Honduras 75/2.5 | ||
| In progress 72 years ≥ Eo ≤ 74 years | Dominican Republic 74/2.4 El Salvador 73/2.1 Nicaragua 74/2.4 Venezuela 72/2.3 | Paraguay 74/2.5 | Guatemala 74/2.9 | ||
| Starting Eo < 72 years | Bolivia 71/2.8 Haiti 64/3.0 | ||||
1.6. Conclusion
The story of the demographic transition in Europe and its subsequent generalization in the world is part of a common demographic framework, despite great economic, social and cultural differences among different regions and periods. Challenging the concept of a universal theory is based on the diversity of stages and factors which provoke it, as well as on the lack of evidence for the hypothesis of population convergence and stabilization (Vallin 2003).
Furthermore, beyond the analyses at a global scale, if one takes into account social and territorial inequalities, migrations, as well as cultural and religious dimensions, different models of demographic transition arise, depending on historical, economic, social and institutional contexts.
We can indeed conclude:
That there is no single model of demographic transition, since the conditions under which it occurs are under the influence of temporal and spatial variables, the values and standards of each society, of its economic and social organization. (Unesco 1996, p. 8)
And therefore, it is necessary to study the social, regional and cultural dimensions of demographic trends in more depth. This is what has led to a considerable number of works on the subject, for decades and still nowadays.
It is in fact paradoxical and stimulating that the concept of demographic transition has been criticized from all sides, but that it is at the origin of fundamental investigations to understand the common history and the possible future of demographic changes worldwide.
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