Stalled Decline in Fertility in Ecuador (Comment) (Report) (Statistical Data‪)‬

Many developing countries have experienced rapid declines in fertility since the 1960s. Although some have already reached the replacement level of 2.1 lifetime births per woman, and others are expected to do so in the future, the decrease in fertility in other countries has slowed or even stalled. (1) Ecuador clearly falls into the latter category. After remaining at approximately 7.0 lifetime births per woman between 1955 and 1969, its total fertility rate (TFR) steadily declined throughout the 1970s and 1980s, reaching 3.8 births in 1989; the average yearly decline over this period was 0.17 births per year. However, the decline slowed between 1989 and 2004 to an average of 0.03 births per year, and the country's TFR in 2004 was 3.3 births per woman. Other demographic and socioeconomic trends are consistent with the slowing of Ecuador's fertility decline between 1989 and 2004. The decline in child mortality--one of the prerequisites for a sustained demographic transition (2)--similarly slowed: Mortality fell from 82 deaths per 1,000 children younger than five in 1987 to 39 deaths in 2000, and then to 35 deaths by 2004. (3) The major economic crisis that occurred in 1999 may have further slowed the fertility decline by reducing the number of jobs and thus the opportunity cost for women of childbearing and child rearing, which had increased during the preceding period of economic development. (4), (5)