Are TV soap operas downsizing Brazilian families?

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

LONDON (AFP) — A dramatic drop in Brazil's fertility rate over the past four decades is due in part to a national addiction to soap operas, a new study suggests.

Unrealistically small families portrayed in the hugely popular soapies seems to be the main factor in the effect put forward this month by researchers working for the London-based Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

The fictional productions, made by top commercial network Globo, definitely have a "sizeable but not huge effect" on how many children Brazilian women want, one of the authors, Eliana La Ferrara of the CEPR and Italy's Bocconi University, told AFP.

Empirical analysis of census and other data showed the fertility rate drop in Brazil from 6.3 children per woman in 1960 to just 2.3...