Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Family and Population Control. A Puerto Rican Experiment in Social Change

1960; Institut national d'études démographiques; Volume: 15; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1525986

1957-7966

J. S., Robert B. Hill, J. Mayone Stycos, Kurt W. Back,

Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

888 families participated in a survey on the family and population control. As of 1953 the population size of Puerto Rico was 2267000 with a crude birth rate of 37.5 infant mortality rate of 65.7 and an average completed family size of 7 among rural and 1.7 among urban women. For the project described the following steps were taken: 1) transposition of the problem of the islands population increase into family terms 2) selecting a conceptual frame of reference 3) selecting a population stratum where the action problem was greatest and where the variables of economic status were minimal (the lower educational class was used) and 4) using the stages of exploration theory and observations to come up with a hypothesis. 3 types of families were studied the jibaro family the rural laborer family and the urban laborer family. The jibaro family is a rural family where the male is undisputed head of the household. Some findings are: 1) ideal family size was 2-3 2) evidence suggests that current preferences are consequences rather than causes of family size 3) both intensity of attitude and preference for the large family at marriage are markedly related to the incidence of sterilization and 4) the machismo attitude is concentrated in marginal age groups and shows no relation to desire for children or achieved family size. At least 40% of all Puerto Rican families have had some experience with contraception with incidence differentially distributed by residence and education. The most popular method is female sterilization (50% of all methods currently in use). For a Catholic population use of rhythm and abstinence is low. The authors present 2 typologies reflecting urbanity and familism and using the principles of property space and case grouping. The typologies are empirically interrelated with a rank-order correlation of 0.89 which is accounted for by the sharing of common life experiences and values. Some conclusions are: 1) family planning in Puerto Rico is neither hindered nor helped by institutional patterns and adherence to cultural norms and 2) knowledge of modern contraceptive methods comes late in marriage and even sterilization is performed after so many births that it does little to affect family size. In educational experiments it was found that groups did respond to promotion of contraception with as many as 50% of non-users beginning to use methods. What is needed are motivations favorable to small family size education about contraception and adequate family organization.