Abstract

FRANCO SUAREZ, María del Carmen; GONZALEZ GALVAN, Diego Enrique  and  FERNANDEZ SUAREZ, Juan Carlos. Characterization of the female population with reproductive ideals above replacement. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2006, vol.32, n.1. ISSN 0864-3466.

Fertility in Cuba has experienced a significant decrease since the end of the 1970s, and it is today among the countries with the lowest fertility in the world. The reproductive reality of the country refers that as an average every woman has 1.6 children, fairly below the replacement level, which is not attained since 1978. However, according to different surveys the reproductive ideal of the Cuban women is between 2 and 3 children. Evidently, a non depictable part of them has never had this second or third child. This research explores those reserves of births, and particularly defines the sociodemographic profile characterizing women with a reproductive ideal above the replacement level - defined in this research as the desire to have 3 or more children if one could choose the number of children to have in the whole life. In other words, the results obtained expose the sociodemographic context in which those reproductive ideals that may seem relatively high compared with the state of fertility in the country are supported. The source of information used was the Reproductive Health Survey done in 2001 in the provinces of Cienfuegos and Holguin as part of the project Territorial Studies of Reproductive Health of the United Nations Population Fund, which will be extended to the provinces of Havana City, Santiago de Cuba and Ciego de Avila The use of statistical analysis techniques - contingency tables, analysis of independence and logistic regression - allowed to make a characterization of the population with possibilities to have a reproductive ideal above the replacememet, that is, the population that could be the strategic population or the starting point in the promotion of policies directed to reanimate the Cuban fertility when it is necessary

Keywords : Sexual and reproductive health; fertility; territorial studies; surveys; reproductive ideal; generational replacement.

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