The role of family planning programs in the fertility transition in Latin America

: This article traces the origins of fertility changes, of attitudes towards contraception and of lower family size values in Latin America, on the basis of information collected during the 1960s and 1970s on abortion, fertility and contraceptive prevalence. It explores the origins and the role of family planning programmes and suggests that they acted as facilitators of the 'mass' transition rather than as the agents that unleashed this process." (SUMMARY IN ENG)