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This chapter uses a standardization approach to identify compositional effects, and Bongaarts ' method for decomposing natural fertility into its proximate determinants to identify intermediate variables. This chapter is based on the available data for Brazil, which are fragmentary in both regional and time coverage. The approach is therefore essential detective work, piec- ing together clues from a variety of sources in an attempt to draw a picture at the national level.
Changes In mar- r iage patterns and age structure are always prime suspects in declining birth rates; therefore, the discussion begins by assessing changes in the distribution of women by mar- ital status and in mean age at marriage, and then applies standardization techniques to check whether these changes and those in age structure played a major role in Brazil's fertility decline.
The available evidence suggests that they did not. This suggests in turn that the primary factor in the decline was one of the intermediate vari- ables affecting marital fertility. The Bongaarts frame- work is then used to explore this possibility. There are three potential factors responsible--breastfeeding, contraception, and abortion. Among these, the limited The evidence implicating the second is stronger, though admittedly fragmentary.
Finally, although the evidence is clearly circumstantial, i t is strong enough to implicate abortion as an important, though necessar fly indeterminate, influence on Brazil' s fertility decline. The reported percentage distribution of Brazilian women aged by marital status in the , , and censuses and in the PNAD survey are presented in Table 5; preliminary results of the census are also reported.
