Demographic responses to economic shocks: the case of Latin America.

People have long studied the relationship between economic trends and demographic parameters. However, in so doing, it is important to distinguish between the direct and usually short-term effects of economic change on demographic variables and longer-term, generally indirect, associations between economic and demographic conditions. This paper discusses the mechanisms through which economic recession and adjustment programs may affect demographic outcomes; implements a simple procedure to assess the magnitudes of the short-term economic effects of the recession on nuptiality, fertility, and mortality; and applies a technique using successive census age distributions to estimate the magnitude of past fertility and mortality fluctuations. To provide additional evidence of demographic responses to past crises, those indirect estimates are then compared with more direct ones obtained from historical records.