A Century of Portuguese Fertility

by Massimo Livi Bacci

Overview

This book treats aspects of the social and demographic history of Portugal in the last century, giving particular attention to the transition from a situation of very high fertility to the moderate pattern prevailing in recent times.

Originally published in 1971.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691620596
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/08/2015
Series:	Office of Population Research , #1410
Pages:	162
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.90(d)

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A Century of Portuguese Fertility

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By Massimo Livi Bacci

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1971 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-09307-9

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CHAPTER 1

Environment and Society: An Introductory Outline

1.1. General Traits of Portugal

In western Europe, Portugal is probably the country least known and studied by social scientists, although it represents a very interesting case study in view of its peculiar development. Our study aims to cover an important part of the social and demographic history of the country, and is mainly concerned with the transition from a situation of high, almost uncontrolled fertility to the moderate pattern prevailing in recent times. In addition, we offer an analysis of the peculiarities and changes of Portuguese society that have determined, directly or indirectly, the decline of fertility.

This introductory chapter therefore outlines the environmental conditions of the society where this transition from high to moderate fertility has taken place, including the geographical setting, the distribution and forms of exploitation of the land, the system of communication, and regional uniformities and contrasts. It is obvious that each one of these topics could be the subject of a separate study, but our aim is merely to provide the reader with the background information necessary for an understanding of fertility trends and differentials.

Portugal is still a very backward country, at least in comparison with the other countries of Western civilization and in spite of the improvements of the last decades. Its per capita income is the lowest in western Europe. Illiteracy, infant mortality, and the incidence of infectious diseases are at the highest level. Only in some areas of the Balkans (Albania, Southern Yugoslavia) do conditions similar to those of Portugal still exist. These conditions in the Balkans derive, however, from centuries of isolation under Turkish rule, and are not the heritage — as in Portugal — of the decline of a great political power.

Portugal is an isolated society; its geographical position at the southwestern end of Europe, the slow diffusion of mass communication media, the political barriers set up by its authoritarian governments against free cultural contacts and exchanges with the outer world, have deeply affected the development of the country, even preserving, in certain areas, features and customs of an archaic, premodern society. The isolation of the country from the rest of Europe became more evident when, with the end of colonial expansion, the balance of political and economic power of the continent shifted to the north. Portugal was then further away from the mainstream of Western thought, culture, and fashions. Even contacts with Spain have always been weak, more because of historical events than because of geographical barriers. Moreover, the least developed areas in Spain are those that border on Portugal.

Many demographers view the process of transition from high to low fertility as the result of a diffusion of a new psychological attitude towards procreation, fostered by social and territorial mobility and by the often complex and tight contacts between countries. It is probably correct to say that in Portugal the development of a pattern of moderate fertility has taken place in an autonomous way, owing little or nothing to external influence. It is true that Portuguese society shared many of the features of the south European, Mediterranean culture, but its isolation from the rest of Europe makes the hypothesis very plausible that fertility control has developed following an endogenous process, relatively free from outside influence. This may be an advantage to us, because one of the complicating factors often encountered in interpreting the decline of fertility can be eliminated from the start.

1.2. Geographical Outline

Some indication, if only in summary form, of the geographical characteristics of Portugal are a necessary introduction to the demographic study that we intend to undertake. A country of almost rectangular shape, accounting for about 15 percent of the entire Iberian peninsula, it is predominantly mountainous in the northeastern section, where the Meseta extends towards the coast and forms a series of fanshaped mountain chains which stretch from Galicia in a southwesterly direction. Although the mountain chains are not very high, the terrain is very rough, and forms a substantial obstacle to longitudinal communications. The area marked by the influence of the mountains extends to the valleys of the Zézere and the Tagus rivers, and includes the provinces of Tras-os-Montes/ Alto Douro and the Beira Alta, but excludes the Minho, and the littorals of the Douro and Beira, forming a longitudinal coastal plain bordering the ocean. Plains and low plateaus are predominant in the south, which includes the whole area below the Tagus, the valley of this river (Ribatejo) and Estremadura. South of the Tagus stretches the low plateau of the Alentejo, which is separated from the southern coast — the Algarve — by a series of hills forming an amphitheatre facing the sea.

The country is also deeply influenced by the rivers which cross it and which, in part, form its borders. To the north, the Minho forms in its final course the border between Spain and Portugal; to the east, the Douro, Tagus, and Guadiana outline part of the border. The Douro and the Tagus have for centuries set the boundaries between the major regional areas of the country (north of the Douro: regions of Minho and Tras-os-Montes; between the Douro and the Tagus: regions of Beira and Estremadura; south of the Tagus: regions of Alentejo and Algarve), a distinction discarded by modern geographers, but historically based on the successive waves of the reconquest of the country from Moorish domination. The Minho, Lima, Douro, Mondego, and Tagus cross the country with a southwesterly orientation; all rivers north of the Tagus flow through deep valleys and gorges, making communications between north and south rather difficult. They become navigable towards their mouths, thus forming waterways favorable to communication and transportation.

The regional structure of Portugal, however, is determined not only by the nature of the relief and waterways but also by the varying characteristics of the climate. According to Ribeiro, an imaginary line separates the north from the south, following the course of the Mondego from the sea to Coimbra, then forming an ample circle bordering the southern edge of the central mountain chain and reaching the Spanish border north of Penamacor. South of this imaginary line, the unifying action of the Mediterranean influence renders the climatic characteristics of the area homogeneous, marked by the scarcity of rain and a long, hot, dry summer. The north is less homogeneous from a climatic point of view. The northeastern, mountainous section (Tras-os-Montes, Alto Douro, and Beira Alta) is essentially subjected to a continental climate, while the northwestern part of the area is subjected to the moderate Atlantic weather system, and has abundant rainfall. In the north of the country a vegetation of the Atlantic type prevails and forests are frequent; the method of soil cultivation is ancient and the distribution of land very fragmented; abundant rainfall and irrigation facilities produce a system of diverse crops; and, the population is sparsely settled. These characteristics cannot be found in the south (with the exception of Estremadura and Algarve), where the distribution of the land is concentrated, the agriculture is predominantly monocultural (cereals, olives), the cultivation of the soil is relatively recent, and the population is clustered in large rural villages.

The relationships between the geographical characteristics and the demographic development of the different regions cannot be shown here; but the reader will note that basic geographic differences exist, that they have deeply affected the rural economy and the rural life of the various regions and have therefore to be taken into account when studying social and demographic changes.

1.3. Geographical and Administrative Subdivisions

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, historians and geographers subdivided Portugal into six regions: Minho, Tras-os-Montes, Beira, Estremadura, Alentejo, and Algarve. The geographic limits of the six regions have always been uncertain and have varied through time, since they did not have any political, administrative, or legal significance. At the beginning of the last century, the six regions were subdivided into forty-four comarcas having some administrative functions.

In 1836, the liberal regime introduced a new administrative unit, the distrito, grouping several concelhos with characteristics and prerogatives similar to the Spanish municipalities and to the Italian communes; each concelho is formed by one or more freguezias (parishes). The subdivision into districts — seventeen on the continent and four in the islands (three for the Azores and one for Madeira) — has remained virtually unchanged until now, with the exception of the introduction of the district of Setubal, in 1926, by separation from Lisbon (see Fig. 1). This constancy facilitates the study that we intend to undertake and assures the possibility of comparisons through time. The administrative subdivision of the country was challenged and discussed several times, and projects of reformation were often advanced (in 1842, 1867, and 1914, for instance) but never actuated. In fact, the distritos, created for administrative purposes, often do not have homogeneous geographic and environmental characteristics; in this regard they have been the object of criticism by geographers and social scientists. However, the administrative and economic functions which are concentrated (since 1836) in the capital of the districts have succeeded, in their own way, in influencing the development of the surrounding territory; therefore, a redistribution of the population into geographically similar areas, according to other criteria, would not be justified.

In 1936, the new civil code superimposed on the existing districts eleven provincias; since there is no correspondence between the confines of the two types of administrative areas, there are districts belonging to different provinces. The creation of the provinces derives from the work of the geographer Amorim Girao; in his conception the rivers are considered as unifying factors of the economic and social life of the different regions and not as elements of separation. Other geographers (Lautensach, Albuquerque, Ribeiro) have proposed different criteria of regionalization. Because we thought it of special interest, we presented in the preceding section Ribeiro's idea, which stresses the basic differences existing between the north Transmontano and the Atlantic on one side, and the south Mediterranean on the other.

1.4. Communications and Mobility

We have said at the beginning that isolation is one of the distinctive marks of the Portuguese society. Even contacts with Spain have always been rare, although there are no important geographical barriers between the two countries, at least not along the extensive eastern border. But unfortunately for Portugal, the regions bordering on Portugal are themselves the least developed in Spain; Galicia to the north; Leon, Spanish Estremadura, and western Andalusia to the east. On both sides of the border the population density is very low; contact between the two countries has consisted solely of permanent migration of Galicians to the Portuguese towns, and seasonal migration from Algarve to Andalusia for summer crops. Contacts with the rest of the world were, during most of the nineteenth century, limited to sea traffic; it was only in 1876 that Lisbon was connected with the rest of Europe by rail, via Salamanca.

The situation of internal communications at mid-nineteenth century was equally poor. Pery observes that the only good road in 1851 was the short Lisbon-Sintra stretch, connecting two royal residences. Regular communications between the two major cities, Lisbon and Porto, were possible only by boat; the trip by land took several days of uncomfortable traveling on horseback or stagecoach on ill-kept roads and remnants of Roman highways. It was only in 1864 that Lisbon was connected with Porto by railroad; the construction of the network proceeded slowly at the beginning (only 967 km. in 1875), then with an accelerated pace; by the beginning of the First World War 3,135 km. of the current total of 3,589 had been completed.

The whole social and economic life of the country has centered during the last century on the Lisbon-Porto axis and the surrounding area, between the Tagus and the Douro, a region equipped with an efficient system of communications and receiving the strong stimuli of the two largest cities of the country. Ribeiro views the dynamism of Portugal as concentrated in the coastal strip between Lisbon and Porto, extended northward to Braga and southward to Setubal, and penetrating the inner country along the valleys of the Tagus, Mondego, and Douro. The other dynamic area of the country, the southern Algarvian litoral, is virtually autonomous from the rest of the country. It is interesting to note that the Algarve was almost completely isolated until the completion of the railway connecting Lisbon with Faro in 1889. Before this date, contacts with the rest of the country were possible only by sea, and until 1875 only by sailboats. The first motor road connecting Faro with Beja came much later, being finished only in 1922.

At the other end of the country, the northeastern Tras-os-Montes was equally isolated from the rest of the country, especially because of the mountainous nature of the region. Until the end of the nineteenth century the region was not part of the railway network, and two of the three lines serving the main valleys of the Tras-os-Montes — the valley of the Corgo line and the Mogadouro line — were completed in 1922 and 1930.

The railroad network could serve the basic needs of the country by the beginning of the First World War, but roads were rare and in very poor condition. It is only in the last three decades that a conspicuous effort has been made to create an efficient system of highways.

It is obvious that the slow progress of the communications system, the difficulty of contacts of the peripheral regions with the rest of the country until relatively recent times, together with the natural obstacles set by rivers and mountains, are all factors in the slow social development of certain areas of the country, in the preservation of their ethnic and cultural peculiarities, and also in the prevention of the development of internal mobility. We will see in due course that these facts are not irrelevant to the history of regional fertility.

1.5. Elements of Regional Differentiation

It has been observed already that the regional geographical and climatic differences have produced substantial disparities as far as the regime of land distribution is concerned. There is no doubt that the plains of the south are more fit for extensive cultivation in large economic units than the mountains and valleys prevailing in the northeast of the country. Moreover, the reconquest of the south from the Moorish domination was followed by the distribution of land to the Church, the military orders, and the aristocracy, causing a strong concentration of land in the hands of a few owners, a situation surviving until today in spite of the selling of the Church and military properties in the nineteenth century. On the other hand, in the Minho, the ancient occupation of the soil, the abundant rainfall, and the irrigation facilities — which make possible an intensive and diverse cultivation of the land — have resulted in the increasing fragmentation of the properties. In Tras-os-Montes and Beira there still survive types of communal ownership and exploitation of land and pastures, once characteristic of the whole area and deeply influencing many aspects of the transmontana society.

The average dimension of the farm unit is only 2.1 ha. in the north, 3.5 in the center, 39.6 in the south (excluding the Algarve), and 5.3 in Algarve. In the north, and particularly in the Minho, the farm workers are in the great majority also farmholders. The property is generally entailed in equal shares to the sons, thus producing an ever-increasing fragmentation of land. The small size of the holdings produces a continuous emigration, particularly of males. The women are frequently employed in agriculture, not only as a consequence of the emigration of males, but also because the diversified type of cultivation requires the year-round care of all members of the family. In the south, and particularly in the Alentejo, the great majority of the labor force consists of hired laborers, often living on the farm while the wife and children remain in the village. The women generally attend to housework and are seldom engaged in other activities.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• Foreword, pg. v
• Contents, pg. vii
• List of Tables, pg. ix
• List of Figures, pg. xii
• CHAPTER 1: Environment and Society: An Introductory Outline, pg. 1
• CHAPTER 2: Population Development During the Nineteenth Century, pg. 14
• CHAPTER 3: Population Statistics and Population Growth During the Last Century, pg. 23
• CHAPTER 4: Trends and Differentials in Portuguese Nuptiality, pg. 38
• CHAPTER 5: A Descriptive Outline of Regional Fertility, pg. 55
• CHAPTER 6: Fertility, Family Size, and Sterility, pg. 80
• CHAPTER 7: Factors Involved in Portugal's Fertility Decline, pg. 101
• Conclusion, pg. 125
• Appendix, pg. 133
• Official Statistical Sources, pg. 137
• Other References, pg. 139
• Index, pg. 143