Fertility Information

Fertility statistics play an important role in any demographer's evaluation of a country.  While fertility statistics can rapidly and radically change, those statistics for a previous year can greatly aid in the prediction of the fertility statistics for subsequent years.  

Brazil's infant mortality rate is 37.99.  This rate represents the number of deaths per 1,000 live births.  Brazil's rate amounts to a little under 3.8%.  This figure is low for a developing country and indicates relatively good infant health. Another, perhaps more valuable statistic is that of the Total Fertility Rate (TFR).  TFR can be thought of as the average number of children a woman will have during her lifetime.  In a hypothetical country where every woman is monogamous and each male/female pair produced two children, the TFR would be 2.  This country would experience zero population growth, as every two individuals would produce only two offspring.  A TFR of 2 is ideal for industrialized countries.  Brazil's TFR is 2.4, again a good rate for a developing country (the United States has a TFR of 2.1).

Over the last 50 years, Brazil has seen a dramatic drop in TFR. We have provided a graph depicting this decline.

Brazil's life expectancy at birth is 68 (71 for women; 64 for men).

It is interesting to note that at 60%, Brazil has the highest rate of contraceptive use of all Latin America.  Only 27% of Brazil's population relies on public programs for contraceptives.  This percentage is the lowest in Latin America.  These statistics indicate that private funding must be having a large effect on the high contraceptive use in Brazil.  In fact, government funding for family planning programs in Brazil is one of the lowest in the world, as we will see next.

<<< Prev  |  Next >>>