In Mexico, overall fertility rates and teenage pregnancy have decreased, and the number of women who decide not to have children has increased, according to Alfonso Mejía Modesto, professor and specialist in the Investigation and Advanced Population Studies Center (CIEAP) at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM). Mejía Modesto and graduate student Ilse Díaz Ramírez presented the new book “Demographic Transformations and the Second Modernity in the Start of the 21st Century in Mexico.”
Undergraduate and graduate students attended the presentation. The book, which was published by the Government of the State of Mexico, discusses demographic transformations in Mexico, including current fertility rates. They found that maternity is now “a much more reflexive process” than in previous centuries, with the result that many more women are choosing not to have children.
Mejía Modesto and Díaz Ramírez discussed that one factor contributing to this trend is the higher education rate among women. They said that reproductive choices have also become more individual. However, they did bring up the fact that teenage pregnancy is still a concerning trend in Mexico that deserves further study.
The book presentation took place as part of the Second Seminar for Interdisciplinary Research on Demographic Dynamics in Mexico: Slowing Growth, organized by the CIEAP “Demographic Dynamics” Academic Corps.
