Contraception as a development tool in Latin America

Résumé du document

Family planning is "a program to regulate the number and spacing of children in a family through the practice of contraception or other methods of birth control." This paper looks at the relationship between the three components of the Human Development Index, respectively education, health and GNP per capita, and the level of contraception in Latin America as a whole. Contraception and education influence each other, through the decrease of fertility rates and the positive impact of awareness campaigns. Health is also highly correlated with the contraceptive prevalence rate through maternal mortality, infant mortality, and child-mortality and abortion rate, not withstanding the fact that contraception prevents the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. GDP per capita is simultaneously affected by contraception through the decrease in fertility rates and affecting the level of implementation and success of family planning programs.

Extraits

[...] This is possible given that the percentage increase in investment is higher than the percentage increase in the population of child-bearing age. Nowadays, Latin America is experiencing a financing problem in this respect, since UNAIDS[xxix] is currently withdrawing, therefore forcing many countries to scramble for solutions in order to perpetuate the programs.[xxx] This happens in a context of increasing demand for contraception, in part generated by the impending age bracket coming into reproductive maturity. Income The analysis of family planning in Latin America cannot be complete without a study of the economic structure of the region. [...]

[...] The latter may be explained by the simple fact that priorities exist in government spending which lead to a certain neglect in one sector or another. In short, the process of funding of family planning rests on a number of other (unrelated) variables which undermines its precedence with regards to other sectors, despite the fact that it remains a top concern in the development of the nation. C. Generating growth: Challenges and hopes As discussed above, a lot of factors, other than wealth, contribute to effective family planning. [...]

[...] Unfortunately, religious traditions remain a reality in Latin America and continue to greatly offset the road toward sustainable development. Finally, because education provides economic growth, reinforcing health-related measures such as family planning; a healthy population may increase the return to investments in education and a greater education capital improves the return to investments in health. Health “Family planning objectives should include reducing maternal and infant morbidity and mortality, lowering the risks of teenage pregnancy and abortion, and preventing sexually transmitted diseases.”[xvii] The contraceptive prevalence rate[xviii] is positively correlated with the life expectancy at birth index in the HDI. [...]

[...] Additionally, contraception also leads to better education: “There is clear evidence that enabling people to have fewer children, if they want to, helps to stimulate development and reduce poverty.”[vii] Logically, smaller families have a higher share of income per capita.[viii] A smaller family is thus more likely to invest in their child's education, providing they have the means to do so, and will consequently strengthen the population's economic and human resources. Perceptibly, the relationship between education and contraception is a mutually reciprocating cycle. In Latin America, Peru particularly has had some success in transforming itself from one of the highest fertilities to the lowest in the past two decades. Peru has hence become a building block onto which its counterparts measure their efforts and their respective successes. It is proven that the increase in the level of education has effects on the number of child per women. [...]

[...] That is the reason why contraception has been a taboo in many Latin American countries for many years. The high fertility rates are often explained by the “catholic resistance to artificial means of birth control.”[xiv] A study also proved that the Catholics, who attend to the church less often, are more susceptible to use birth control.[xv] For instance, “devout Catholics might want small families but have large ones because they do not wish to practice contraception”.[xvi] Oftentimes, it is this other type of religious and moral ‘education' which discredits secular and scientific education, at the expense of family planning practices. [...]