Migrants and locals: their influence on the Argentinean fertility - PDF document

Migrants and locals: their influence on the Argentinean fertility transition 1 Edith Alejandra Pantelides- Centro de Estudios de Población- CENEP eap@cenep.org.ar Presenting author: Edith Alejandra Pantelides Language: English Introduction The starting point of the Argentinean fertility transition is difficult to establish due to the paucity of statistical information and the uneven quality of the available data. We do know that by the second part of the XIX century there were still no traces of it and that by the end of the 1940s it was well under way. During that same time span Argentine received large numbers of immigrants, mostly from Europe. This paper is based on research that attempts to give some clues about the possible relationship between immigration and the fertility transition in Argentina by examining information from censuses and vital statistics. It also proposes an approximate starting point for the transition, and discusses some theoretical explanations about the transition to see how they fit the Argentinian case. Fertility – as measured by the crude birth rate (CBR) - declined in Argentina earlier than in all other Latin American countries except Uruguay. Unlike what is proposed by the demographic transition theory (Notestein 1945) this decline did not lead to a period of high natural growth because there was a parallel decline in mortality (as measured by the crude death rate - CDR) (Lattes 1975). According to several authors (Collver 1965, Lattes 1975, Rothman 1973, Torrado 1970) the CBR started a slow decline sometime between 1880 and 1890. The first question we attempt to answer is: was this the start of the fertility transition? In other words, was the decline of the CBR a sign that fertility was declining? The second question we will try to answer is: what, if any, influence had the large European immigration received by Argentina starting in the late 1800s, on the decline of fertility as several authors have proposed (Cutright et al. 1976, Elizaga 1973, Rothman 1973, Torrado, 1970). To answer this second question the analysis does not cover the whole country because vital statistics were not available at the national level in the earlier periods studied here. Five jurisdictions were selected: 4 provinces (Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Santa Fe, and Tucumán) and the city of Buenos Aires, here called “Federal Capital” or “Capital” to avoid confusion). The analysis starts in 1869 (first national census) and ends in 1947 (the fourth national census). The areas were selected to represent different development stages and diverse impacts of the foreign-born population (Table I, Appendix). 1 This paper is mostly based on the author’s dissertation, The Decline of Fertility in Argentina, 1869- 1947 . Presented to the University of Texas at Austin, USA, 1984. A shorter Spanish version in Pantelides 1995. 1

Methodology and sources of data The sources of data for the study were censuses and vital statistics. The national censuses of 1869, 1895, 1914, and 1947, were the main source. The quality of the three first national censuses was evaluated by Lattes (1968) who estimated a 3.3 to 3.8 percent of under- enumeration for the native-born and 2.4 to 6.3 percent for the foreign-born. The 1947 census was considered of good quality by Camisa (1964), Lattes (1968), and Somoza (1968). However, the evaluations do not extend to the enumeration of sub-populations. 2 The civil registration system in which the vital statistics are based covered different provinces at different times, starting in the mid to late 1880s. By 1914 all provinces have adopted civil registration but full coverage was not reached until later. For some provinces scattered ecclesiastical sources are available for earlier dates. Birth statistics were evaluated and corrected by Recchini de Lattes (1967, 1969), Recchini de Lattes and Lattes (1969), and by Pantelides (1995). In this paper the corrected births by Recchini de Lattes are used. The measures calculated were those that the sources allowed. Thus, the picture is not complete in all the dimensions all the time. Sometimes there are only beats and pieces of information that provide probable scenarios. To see the influence of immigrants in the country’s fertility resenting requires that the fertility of locals (more precisely, natives) and immigrants is measured and compared. This poses methodlogical problems. The first one is the definition of “foreign-born fertility” versus “native fertility”. Given that fertility is the product of a union of two persons, the problem arises when the persons in question are one native and the other foreign-born. Some studies Baily, 1980; Szuchman, 1977) show that in Argentina there was a high degree of endogamy in the national groups and that in the case of mixed marriages between a foreigner and a native, and given the high masculinity index among the former, the most frequent combination was between an immigrant male and a native female. Knowing this does not solve the methodological problem since in practice the data forces us to define the “nationality of fertility” by the nationality of the mother. Context During the period when the CBR declined, 3 , the Argentinian economy was expanding thanks to the export of agricultural and animal husbandry products, some industrialization and growth of the services sector, accompanied by a process of urbanization. Population residing in localities of 10,000 and more inhabitants almost doubled between 1869 and 1914 and surpassed 50% by 1947 (Table 1). At the same time the educational level of the population was increasing: illiteracy fell from 77.4% in 1869 to 53.3% in 1895 and 35.9% in 1914. The decrease in illiteracy was somewhat faster among women, although starting from a higher level 4 (Table 1). 2 For more details see the authors cited and Pantelides (1995). 3 As shown in table 1 other fertility measures declined later than the CBR. This discrepancy will be discussed later in this paper. 4 Sources: Argentina, Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos (1956 ), Recchini de Lattes (1975). 2

Table 1. Argentina. Context of the CBR’s decline. Census dates 1869 to 1947 Female population % population % % foreign in localities % illiterate Year CBR economically born 10,000 and (ages 14 and active (ages more over) 10 and over) 1869 49.1 12.1 22.2 82.2 58.8 1895 44.0 25.4 27.2 59.0 41.9 1914 39.2 30.3 40.0 40.7 27.4 1947 26.3 15.3 52.7 15.2 26.0 Notes: CBRs are for the years 1870-1874, 1890-1894, 1910-1914, and 1944-1949. Sources: CBR: Lattes 1975. All other: Argentina, Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos 1956. Immigrants (mostly Europeans) were 12% of the population when the first national census was taken in 1869. Their weight doubled by the second census in 1895 and reached its peak in 1914 (the third census) (Table 1). The impact of this large foreign born population cannot be underestimated: 58% of the country’s growth between 1840 and 1940 was due directly or indirectly to immigration, compared with 41% in the United States 5 . Of that 58% half was the direct contribution of the foreign born population and the other half was the contribution of the immigrant’s natural increase (Mortara 1947). Recchini de Lattes (1969) calculated that, in the absence of international migration after 1870, the population of Argentina would have been 27% smaller in the 1895 census, 46% smaller in the 1914 census and 52% smaller in the 1947 census. Fertility decline: when Establishing when the fertility decline started in Argentina is a task hindered by the paucity of data and by their poor quality, as explained earlier. Another aspect to be considered is the heterogeneity of the populations that were and are part of the territory called “Argentina”. Thus fertility decline may have started at different times in different areas, as in fact it did. Our hypothesis is that at the national level the decline of the CBR between the two first national censuses that several authors (Collver, 1965; Lattes, 1975; Rothman, 1973; Torrado 1970) estimate was the start of the transition is due to factors other than a decline in fertility and, given the theme of this paper, we will examine if immigration could be one such factor. In Table 2 besides the CBR, the total fertility rate (TFR) and the mean and median number of children ever born are shown for the whole country. Only the CBR shows a continuous decline that starts somewhere between 1869 and 1895. The mean and median 5 The United States was the destination of a much larger number of immigrants than Argentina but they were a smaller proportion in relation to the size of the receiving population. 3