Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística

About - 2016

The changes that took place in its population pattern are one of the most important underlying changes happened in the Brazilian society. Starting timidly in the 1940s, these changes increased after the 1960s, by significantly decreasing the level of fertility, reducing the population growth rate and changing the age pyramid, resulting in the slower increase of children and teenagers, as well as in the continuous increase of the working age population and of the elderly.

This publication provides the users with a detailed study of this subject, divided into five chapters richly illustrated with tables and graphs. The initial chapter, Algumas abordagens sobre a transição da fecundidade (Some approaches on the fertility transition), deals with the particularities of the transition of the Brazilian population, by comparing them with the conceptions and paths experienced by more developed countries, in which this process began a long time ago. The second chapter, Transformações socioeconômicas e seus efeitos sobre a dinâmica da população (Socioeconomic changes and their effects on the population dynamics), summarizes the evolution of the Brazilian population along the 20th century, whose highlights were the population growth and urbanization. It also brings a brief summary of the major socioeconomic changes happened and the major social programs and public policies in general and for health in particular, which could be linked to the trends found. The aspects related with the contraceptive methods were particularly stressed, as they were considered one of the key factors to the sound drop of the fertility in the 1980s onwards. The third chapter, Impactos da fecundidade e da mortalidade sobre a dinâmica da população (Impacts of fertility and mortality on the population dynamics), analyzes the history of the components of the population dynamics – natality and mortality –, as well as the life expectancy at birth, the causes of violent deaths and the evolution of the infant mortality rate. The fourth chapter, O processo de evolução da fecundidade no Brasil e os impactos da transição recente (The evolution of fertility in Brazil and the impacts on the recent transition), focus on the changes in the fertility and assesses their impacts on the population dynamics, taking into account the whole country and its regional and state disaggregation. It also covers the impacts of the education of mothers on the levels of fertility and the resulting changes in the age structures. The last chapter, Impactos da queda da fecundidade na estrutura etária e implicações nas políticas públicas (Impacts of the dropping fertility on the age structure and effects on public policies), analyzes the unfolding of the changes on the age structures and the formulation of public policies oriented to population groups, particularly the elderly, which tends to continually increase.

Regardless of not exhausting the analysis of this subject, this study is a required source of information for scholars, public policy makers and those interested to understand the particularities of the dynamics of the Brazilian population.