NBER Working Papers · 2026 · [{"name": "Regina Calles", "affiliation": []}, {"name": "Tom Vogl", "affiliation": []}]
中文摘要
拉丁美洲意义重大的生育率转型如今已成为历史，这使我们得以从队列视角考察已完成生育率的下降。利用17个拉丁美洲国家的人口普查微观数据，我们按次国家地区追踪1920年代至1970年代出生的女性队列，以考察队列生育率下降在多大程度上与其他人口和社会经济过程同时发生。在各次国家地区内部，跨队列来看，曾生子女数随死亡率下降呈一比一下降。城市化、多代同住、女性及其丈夫受教育程度、女性就业以及非农业部门的扩张，均预测了曾生子女数与存活子女数的下降，但在协变量调整后，女性受教育程度和部门构成是主导力量。生育率下降并未与儿童结果（包括入学、识字、小学完成和非就业）的改善呈现系统性关联。这些队列事实对以女性工作和儿童教育为中心的生育率下降理论构成挑战，但支持了强调女性受教育程度的其他理论。
Abstract
Latin America's momentous fertility transition is now in the domain of history, allowing a cohort perspective on the decline of completed fertility. Using census microdata from 17 Latin American countries, we track female birth cohorts from the 1920s to the 1970s by subnational region to document the extent to which cohort fertility decline coincided with other demographic and socioeconomic processes. Across cohorts within subnational regions, children ever born fell one-for-one with mortality decline. Expansions in urbanization, multigenerational living, women's and husbands' education, women's employment, and the non-agricultural sector all predicted declines in ever-born and surviving fertility, but women's education and sectoral composition were the dominant forces after covariate adjustment. Fertility decline was not systematically linked with improvements in children's outcomes, including school enrollment, literacy, primary completion, and non-employment. These cohort facts challenge theories of fertility decline centered on women's work and children's education but support others emphasizing women's education.