On the demographic prospects in the southern Portugal: the fall of fertility: (use of Coale's method)

Abstract

The main variable of demographic dynamics - the relationship of which with the economic and social dynamics is complex but none the less fundamental for that - is the fertility of populations. Studying this variable, according to Coale's method, in the southern Portugal, one concludes that it is undergoing a fall movement, ascertainable after the beginning of this century. The effects of such a fall upon the evolution of the population structure are nothing but worrying. Neither emigration nor other variables (such as urbanization and economic development) - that, in other contexts, as it is proved, have deep effects upon the fall of fertility - seem to be, in this case, factors relevant for the explanation of the fall referred to. The explanation must be looked for through the study of the connections between social variables and demographic variables. Only such a study, that it is urgent, will make possible to ascertain the factors with which one must interfere in order to avoid changing the «granary of Portugal» into the «desert (or 'asylum') of Portugal».