The Centre for Economic Policy Research reports that:
Soap operas (novelas) are watched by the vast majority of the population in Brazil, and often portray families that are much smaller that the reality for the country. The authors of CEPR DP6785 use this to examine the effects of television, and of role models portrayed in these novelas, on individual behaviour, specifically fertility choices.
Rede Globo has a virtual monopoly on the production of novelas, and an analysis of differences in the timings of Globo’s entry into areas of the country, coupled with census data, reveals that areas reached by the Globo signal had significantly lower fertility than comparable areas not reached by Globo. The magnitude of the effect is about one tenth of the effect of being married on fertility, and is comparable to that associated with an increase of 1 doctor or nurse per 1,000 people.
The authors find that the effect is strongest for women of lower socioeconomic status, and (a) is insignificant for women aged 15-24; (b) leads to an 8% decrease in the mean probability of giving birth for women aged 25-34; and (c) leads to an 11% decrease in the mean probability for women aged 35-44.
Further evidence from naming patterns and the impact of the introduction of foreign soap operas that are not seen as realistic portraits of Brazilian life indicates that it is novelas, not just televisions per se, that are behind the results.
Question – is this good news or bad news? Steve Landsburg would say bad news.
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