{"id":281902,"date":"2019-04-16T15:47:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T18:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=281902"},"modified":"2019-04-16T15:47:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T18:47:21","slug":"elza-salvatori-berquo-a-pioneering-spirit-in-demography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/elza-salvatori-berquo-a-pioneering-spirit-in-demography\/","title":{"rendered":"Elza Salvatori Berqu\u00f3: A pioneering spirit in demography"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves<\/span><\/a>Elza Salvatori Berqu\u00f3 is a specialist in statistics and demography with a special interest in exploring unexpected research fronts. She studied human reproduction in the city of S\u00e3o Paulo in the mid-1960s at the School of Public Health of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (FSP-USP) and observed a decrease in the fertility rates of women in S\u00e3o Paulo. In May of this year, she continued in the same manner and urged researchers at the Center for Population Study at the University of Campinas (NEPO-UNICAMP) to immerse themselves in a new project to betterunderstand adolescent suicide, which has exhibited an increasing trend worldwide.<\/p>\n

On August 8 of this year, Berqu\u00f3 received what she considered to be the definitive accolade to add to her collection of awards and honors when the auditorium at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP) in S\u00e3o Paulo was named in her honor. \u201cThis honor from CEBRAP was all I was lacking,\u201d she says. \u201cNow there\u2019s nothing missing.\u201d In 2014, NEPO, which she created in 1982, incorporated the demographer\u2019s name into the Center\u2019s title. Recently, UNICAMP Publishing released Demografia na Unicamp \u2013 Um olhar sobre a produ\u00e7\u00e3o do Nepo<\/em> (Demography at UNICAMP: A look at NEPO\u2019s production), edited by Berqu\u00f3.<\/p>\n

She has every right to be happy. When she was forced into mandatory retirement by Institutional Act No. 5 (AI-5, which is a defunct decree implemented by the military regime) in 1968, Berqu\u00f3 felt utterly lost. Her research projects at FSP-USP were terminated, and she was barred from entering the institution. The following year, she received an invitation to be one of the founders of CEBRAP with Fernando Henrique Cardoso (who would become President of Brazil), Jos\u00e9 Arthur Giannotti, C\u00e2ndido Proc\u00f3pio Ferreira de Camargo (1922\u20131987) and a few selected persons. \u201cShe arrived with an established project, already knowing what she was going to do, and showed us the revolution that was happening in the reproduction habits of Brazilians,\u201d recalled Giannotti during the homage.<\/p>\n

Elza Berqu\u00f3 was born in Guaxup\u00e9, Minas Gerais. Due to constant relocating by her father, who was a postal service employee, she decided to study mathematics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (PUC-Campinas) when their family was based in that city. In 1950, three years after she graduated, she had the opportunity to work at FSP-USP. In her nearly 70 years as a mathematician, statistician, and demographer, she founded and helped create schools, centers, and institutions and was the principal academic responsible for the formal, mainstream teaching of demography in Brazil.<\/p>\n

Age<\/strong>\u00a092 years
\nSpecialty<\/strong>
\nDemography
\nEducation<\/strong>
\nUndergraduate degree in mathematics from PUC-Campinas (1947); doctorate in biostatistics from Columbia University, United States (1958)
\nInstitution<\/strong>
\nThe Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP)
\nScientific production<\/strong>
\nAuthored or edited approximately 26 books and 100 scientific articles <\/div>\n

She married twice. Her first husband was the mathematician Rubens Murilo Marques, who played a significant role in the early years of UNICAMP. Her second husband was the public administrator Jos\u00e9 Ademar Dias to whom she remained married for 36 years until his death ten years ago. By choice, she had no children.<\/p>\n

Her 92 years of age, which she celebrated on October 17, are a limiting factor only with regard to the physical aspects. \u201cStop working; I never stopped,\u201d she says. Until she suffered a fall, she frequented CEBRAP at least three times a week. She recently resumed her visits on a less frequent basis. She primarily stays at home in the southern district of S\u00e3o Paulo in a building designed by her friend, the architect Villanova Artigas (1915-1985), a professor at the USP School of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU-USP). Artigas was also persecuted by the AI-5. The house-built to order by Berqu\u00f3 and her first husband\u2014was completed in 1968 and became one of Artigas\u2019s most admired works. Berqu\u00f3 frequently opens her doors to groups of architecture students and documentary filmmakers who wish to show the interior of the house. In her ample living room, which is filled with memorabilia from her travels, books, and science journals, Elza Berqu\u00f3 granted the following interview:<\/p>\n

If the social security reforms under discussion are approved, people will have to spend a greater number of years in the labor market before they can retire. This requirement places pressure on young people who need jobs. Do you see any solution to this conflict?<\/strong>
\nNo. People can retire at only 50 years of age due to their length of time on the job. Since they started working at a very early age, they can retire early. We have not observed a similar situation in other countries. I am not aware of anyone in Germany, for example, who is retiring at age 50. I think this issue needs attention to ensure that fair policies are implemented. Now, whether it\u2019s the right time for the current government to do this is another story.<\/p>\n

A forecast from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE, based on United Nations data from 2015, indicates that the profile of Brazil\u2019s population is similar to that of more developed, older countries. Didn\u2019t your studies predict this a long time ago?<\/strong>
\nThis question was thoroughly addressed by demographers. The first phase of the demographic transition in Brazil began in the 1940s with the onset of the decline in mortality. The second phase occurred between 1960 and 1970, when we demonstrated that fertility rates were decreasing. The person who investigated this transition was the sociologist Vilmar Faria [1942\u20132001] at CEBRAP. In his analysis, families needed to be large because so many children died. However, some people would survive and would care for their parents in their old age. One of the reasons for the decreased fertility rates can be linked to the evolution of social security: parents realized that having numerous children due to future retirement benefits. Another factor was the appearance of the contraceptive pill in 1965. The media revolution, especially television, also contributed to the decline in fertility.<\/p>\n

I suggested to NEPO researchers that they reflect on teen suicide, which is a global issue<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How so?<\/strong>
\nBecause all soap operas, which always had large audiences, showed a small model family. I had the opportunity to interview several soap opera directors when I investigated the influence of TV on the declining fertility rate. In 1996, and 1997, [the TV network] Globo aired O Rei do Gado<\/em> (The king of cattle). I asked the directors, \u201cIs Globo responsible for you having a model family that\u2019s small?\u201d They said, \u201cNot at all, we prefer soaps with multiple small, nuclear families because it\u2019s more interesting, instead of doing it like the Mexicans, where you have the rich and the poor, and the good and evil in two large families.\u201d This research gained a substantial amount of fame. An important group of researchers participated in the study \u201cThe social impact of television on reproductive behavior.\u201d The anthropologist Esther Hamburger of USP was one of the coordinators of the project, which had the participation of researchers from the Center for Development and Regional Planning at the Federal University of Minas Gerais [CEDEPLAR], NEPO, and the University of Texas in the United States. We performed our research in the cities S\u00e3o Paulo and Montes Claros in the state of Minas Gerais. We wanted to determine the influence of television on both a metropolitan city and a small city.<\/p>\n

Do other factors explain the decline in fertility from the 1960s to the present?<\/strong>
\nThe last factor is consumer credit policy. When you have credit and consumer aspirations, you need to consider how they align with the number of children. These four factors\u2014social security, contraception, television, and consumer credit\u2014in the words of Vilmar Faria, were not previously considered to reduce fertility rates; however, they did cause a reduction. In the 21st<\/sup> century in Brazil, a woman has 1.8 children on average, which is equivalent to either one child or two children. We performed one study at CEBRAP and published in part in Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Popula\u00e7\u00e3o<\/em> [the Brazilian Journal of Population Studies], by ABEP [Brazilian Association of Population Studies] in 2014 about a current phenomenon. Women marry at a later stage in their lives or do not marry and postpone reproduction. Time passes and eventually they become infertile. The concepts fecundity and fertility differ. Fertility is the ability to conceive; fecundity is the ability to deliver a live birth after conception. When a woman delays reproduction, she places herself on the descending part of a fertility curve, which decreases with age. When a woman is young, she is high on the curve. When a woman cannot get pregnant, she can use reproductive assistance if she can afford it. As fertility\u2014and mortality\u2014declines, the number of births and young people declines. However, the other part of the population lives longer. As a result, the aging populace increases due to fewer deaths.<\/p>\n

How did the idea to research delayed reproduction arise?<\/strong>
\nFive years ago, when I talked to demographers who live in S\u00e3o Paulo but do not teach at a university, I noticed that they felt a certain anxiety because they only saw other demographers at ABEP meetings. I did not feel the same anxiety because I had my groups at CEBRAP and NEPO. I decided to create Demographic Coffee at CEBRAP. Once a month, I would meet outside researchers for coffee without an agenda. They came from the State Data Analysis Foundation [SEADE], the Carlos Chagas Foundation of the Santa Casa Charities, and the Institute of Health of the S\u00e3o Paulo State Department of Health. We would meet without an itinerary to discuss our research. After talking about things for a, while we decided that studying delayed reproduction was important. Subsequently, we prepared an agenda. The SEADE staff had the data on S\u00e3o Paulo because they have access to birth certificates with the mother\u2019s age and socioeconomic condition. This project involved Bernadette Waldvogel and Carlos Eugenio Ferreira from SEADE, colleagues Sandra Garcia and T\u00e2nia di Giacomo do Lago from CEBRAP, and Lu\u00eds Eduardo Batista from the Institute of Health. We worked together until we finished the paper and published the first work in the ABEP journal in 2014. Prior to this work, we conducted a seminar with this same team. In the article, we confirm the decrease in fertility rates between 1960 and 2010 and demonstrate an increase in the proportion of births of the first children among women between the ages 30 and 39 from 2000\u20132010. These data prompt us to posit the existence of delayed reproduction, either temporary or permanent, in the women of S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n

Was this project named \u201cA woman of 30\u201d?<\/strong>
\nThis project received this name due to the postponement of childbearing. Luiz Eduardo remembered, as a joke, a song by Miltinho [1928\u20132014], which is named \u201cMulher de 30\u201d [A woman of 30]. The first chorus includes the lyrics \u201cYou, woman \/ Who have already lived, already suffered \/ Don\u2019t lie \/ A sad goodbye in your eyes \/ We see it, woman of 30.\u201d This memory christened the project. We investigate the same question for the citizens of Brazil because we were previously restricted to S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Personal archive<\/span><\/a> C\u00e2ndido Proc\u00f3pio Ferreira de Camargo at the launch of Fertility in S\u00e3o Paulo by Maria Coleta de Oliveira and Berqu\u00f3 (right<\/em>) in 1968Personal archive<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Is research available that determines whether the data for the entire country differ from the data of S\u00e3o Paulo?<\/strong>
\nWe have some results but we have not started the analysis. Over the course of my life, I have learned that an idea can slip through a crack. Sandra Garcia may be obtaining results and drawing some conclusions. The speed of her work currently is substantially greater than the speed of my work.<\/p>\n

Did NEPO participate in this study?<\/strong>
\nNo. I keep planting seeds in both places. When I attended NEPO\u2019s 35th<\/sup> anniversary celebration in May of this year, I warned NEPO that I would not reminisce about previous activities. I had previously addressed these activities when NEPO celebrated their 20th, 25th and 30th anniversaries. Instead, I suggested that the researchers reflect on an important global issue, which is teen suicide. I want to work with CEBRAP on this issue, which is my most recent research interest. In Brazil, the issue became serious with a game that arrived from Russia named \u201cBlue Whale\u201d [teenagers have to meet 50 challenges that include self-mutilation and suicide].<\/p>\n

Have you previously observed the behavior of young people?<\/strong>
\nIn 2012, I launched a project at CEBRAP with the Carlos Chagas Foundation named \u201cGiving the young a voice.\u201d We worked in two cities\u2014S\u00e3o Paulo and Itapeva [a small university city]\u2014in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo. I was very intrigued by the sexuality of young people. Today, AIDS continues to proliferate among youth. Unplanned pregnancy also continues to increase, even with the morning-after pill and various other means for avoiding conception. The question was what do they want? I thought that I should listen to young people who discuss their sexuality. We requested participation via the CEBRAP website. I needed the help of communication experts to develop appealing language. The invitation was carefully constructed word by word and disseminated via social networks. The idea was to have public high school students aged 14 to 19 send a narrative that addresses any aspect of sexuality\u2014love, sex, dating, desires, preferences, fears, and teenage pregnancy. We received 200 responses and selected the top 20 responses. I requested that the same committee that worked on the invitation assist with consulting. The researchers involved in the collaboration included T\u00e2nia Lago; Clarice Herzog, who works in advertising; Vera Paiva, who is a USP psychologist who studies AIDS; Sandra Unbehaum, who is the Coordinator of Educational Research at Carlos Chagas; Maria Coleta de Oliveira, who is a demographer at UNICAMP; Alessandro de Oliveira dos Santos, who works in the psychology department at USP; and Jairo Bouer, who is a doctor and educator. Once the narratives were selected, we offered screenwriting workshops at CEBRAP.<\/p>\n

How did this process work?<\/strong>
\nThe students who were selected took a 90-hour workshop. We had 20 narratives. In the first workshop, each of the adolescents received 20 narratives to read. They could choose the themes that they would be working on with the screenwriter. With the scripts, audiovisual director Paula Garcia would drive around the city with a teenager to find the best environment for shooting a movie based on the written responses of the teenager. They created ten videos; the length of each video ranged from 10 to 15 minutes. Five videos were made in S\u00e3o Paulo, and five videos were made in Itapeva. All the videos are available on YouTube. Itapeva was chosen because I wanted to observe the youth outside the capital, and the city\u2019s suicide rate was slightly above average. I had been troubled by the suicide problem, and we decided to perform the research in Itapeva.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, what was done with these videos?<\/strong>
\nWe screened the videos on an open stage at the Heli\u00f3polis Cultural Center in S\u00e3o Paulo. The videos were also viewed in the teenagers\u2019 homes with counselors who work with young people to observe the families\u2019 reactions. This approach was important to us because the families had conservative members. At this point, our work was complete. Albertina Duarte, who is a physician at the USP School of Medicine, uses the videos when he works with young people. Everything has been recorded, but we have not published an article with this story.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Personal archive<\/span><\/a> Receiving a bachelor\u2019sdegree in mathematics from PUC-Campinas in 1947; in 1950, she attended the School of Public Health at USPPersonal archive<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Has the research on suicide started?<\/strong>
\nWe are seeking funding because we want to create an app. Worldwide, 123 apps are available for prevent suicide. In Brazil, we only have one app, which is terrible. Calma is an excellent app in Argentina. When a person is in the depths of depression, they press a button and hear, \u201cCalm down,\u201d and begin to receive help. We want to make a good app. I am setting up a focus group.<\/p>\n

How did you research the conclusion regarding the need to research youth suicide?<\/strong>
\nFirst, we contacted the students. When they write their narratives, I feel like they are asking for help. Same-sex relationships have appeared in many of the stories that we received. Two of our videos addressed this topic. According to the statements of one of the young people, his family was scared by the contents of the video. The videos were also screened with the help of Jairo Bouer. In the presentation we made in Heli\u00f3polis, some family members were frightened by the video; however, they will have to travel this road. I approached numerous young people in Heli\u00f3polis. Based on the statistics, I thought that if young people know how to prevent AIDS and pregnancy and continue to engage in risky behavior, they want to take risks. I reasoned that they engage in risky behavior because they have reached a limit of disinterest in the available data.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk a bit about your career. You received a degree in mathematics in 1947 and began to work with Professor Pedro Egydio de Oliveira Carvalho (1910\u20131958) at FSP-USP in 1950. What motivated you to leave Campinas?<\/strong>
\nPUC-Campinas previously hired teachers from abroad. The courses that I took were very good. Mathematics changed my concept of belief. We were educated in Euclidean geometry. However, I had teachers who taught me other geometries, where parallel lines meet. These geometries were not related to the notion that God exists in infinity. In the geometry of Nikolai Lobachevsky [Russian mathematician, 1792\u20131856], for example, the lines meet because his geometry is built on other axioms. Prior to visiting S\u00e3o Paulo [the city], I taught in a middle school in Capivari [in S\u00e3o Paulo State]. While on vacation with my family in Serra Negra, I met a young man who lived in the capital and was also educated as a mathematician. He had been invited to go to FSP-USP. Since he could not accept the invitation because he was going abroad, he asked if I was interested. I made an appointment with Pedro Egydio de Oliveira Carvalho who headed the Statistics Department. He was a physician, mathematician, and proficient in statistics. He accepted me but imposed his rules. At this time, a couple of Americans taught at the School of Philosophy, Sciences, and Languages and Literature, and I had to attend their classes. My job was to transcribe the entire class. When we returned to the college, I had to write a clean copy, and he checked it and said, \u201cYou took good notes.\u201d When I completed postgraduate work at Columbia University in the United States between 1954 and 1956, he said, \u201cSend me a copy of everything you study there, so that when you come back you won\u2019t know more than I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

What made you switch from math to statistics and then to demography?<\/strong>
\nAlthough I liked math, a certain determinism made me feel hemmed in. When I entered the field of statistics, I discovered that probabilistic models were delightful because things have a certain probability of being and likewise of not being. These models enchanted me. I had numerous achievements in statistics. At some point, we say so what? What is the explanation behind the results that makes everything happen? What are the social, economic, cultural, and political determinants? I wanted to work with these elements. That is demography.<\/p>\n

What is the explanation behind the statistics? I wanted to work with those elements, which pertain to demography<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Did you reach this conclusion in the United States?<\/strong>
\nNo, it was right here. When Pedro Egydio died prematurely in 1958 at age 48, I returned to Columbia for two months to prepare my doctoral thesis and compete for a professorship at FSP, which occurred in 1960. Ruth Gold [1921\u20132009] and Agnes Berger [1916\u20132002] were two top statisticians who had worked with Jerzy Neyman [Russian-born American, 1894\u20131981], who was a luminary of mathematical statistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and who I subsequently met and was a considerable influence on me. At this time, Ruth and Agnes were in Columbia and said that we can collaborate on my thesis. We chose to perform statistical sequential analysis, which was new at this time, from the Hungarian Abraham Wald [1902\u20131950]. In sequential analysis, the sample size is not fixed in advance. A hypothesis can be accepted, rejected, or require additional work because sufficient evidence may not be available to make a decision about the hypothesis. The analysis differed from hypothesis testing, where the sample size is fixed in advance. To obtain examples to use in my thesis, we collaborated with the medical school in Columbia and used one of their studies of the use of two different drugs for premature babies. My thesis addressed the use of this statistical method for public health problems.<\/p>\n

Five decades ago, demography seemed to have minimal importance in Brazil. Today, public administrators don\u2019t perform any planning without considering demography. When did this change begin?<\/strong>
\nI founded CEDIP [Center for the Study of Population Dynamics], which was the first center for demographic education in Brazil, at FSP in 1966. Earlier, I ran the Statistics Department when Pedro Egydio died. Since the School of Philosophy did not have a statistics or mathematics department, and I knew I would need both departments, I created a degree program for statistical mathematics with Rubens Murilo Marques, who was my first husband. I received a considerable amount of support for this group. To form the demography group, I invited the physician Jo\u00e3o Yunes [1936\u20132002], who became the State Secretary of Health many years later; sociologist Neide Patarra [1939\u20132013]; mathematician-sociologist Jair L\u00edcio Ferreira Santos; economist Paul Singer; and C\u00e2ndido Proc\u00f3pio, who is also a sociologist and became the first president of CEBRAP. I already had the viewpoint that demography is multidisciplinary. With the exception of Proc\u00f3pio, who was older, the remainder of the group consisted of young people who left Colombia with scholarships from OPAS [the Pan American Health Organization] to complete graduate studies in demography, each in a different place. Yunes attended Michigan, Singer attended Princeton, and Neide and Jair attended Chicago. Proc\u00f3pio was well known and traveled throughout the United States and Europe to learn about demographics programs that could help us to form CEDIP. An agreement between FSP and OPAS, in which the organizations would underwrite graduate scholarships and salaries for five years, was constructed. After five years, the college would assume the expenses. After we created CEDIP and started working, FSP did not honor these commitments. For this agreement with OPAS, the dean of the college was Rodolfo dos Santos Mascarenhas [1909\u20131979]. An interesting situation happened during this period. I was a faculty representative on the University Council at USP. I attended a meeting with Professor Mascarenhas. The meeting was delayed, and I asked him about the reason for the delay. Apparently, the student representative did not have a suit coat, was in his shirtsleeves, and could not enter the meeting room. I said, \u201cIt\u2019s absurd that a student can\u2019t enter in shirtsleeves.\u201d Then, they said to me, \u201cBut would you come in here in a bikini?\u201d I said, \u201cIf I wore a bikini around on the street, I would.\u201d I won the argument. The student came in, and some of the teachers tore off their ties. I can picture the student to this day. He came walking in and I thought, \u201cIs this what the University Council is all about?\u201d I told Mascarenhas, \u201cI really don\u2019t want to come here anymore.\u201d I did not return.<\/p>\n

Before CEDIP, was demography taught or researched in Brazil?<\/strong>
\nDemography was not taught in a formal manner or linked to a university, only at IBGE in Rio [de Janeiro]. Jo\u00e3o Lira Madeira [1909\u20131979] was a demographer who was interested in educating other demographers. Giorgio Mortara [1885\u20131967], who was from Italy, coordinated two important censuses in Brazil\u2014in 1940 and 1950. Lira Madeira worked with him. IBGE was the only place where demography was explored.<\/p>\n

In 1965, you conducted your study \u201cHuman reproduction in the district of S\u00e3o Paulo.\u201d How did that come about?<\/strong>
\nWe conducted this study with Paul Singer, Neide Patarra, and Maria Coleta de Oliveira. We had the censuses from 1940 and 1950. The 1960 census was completed but was not published until 1978. Several different stories discuss this census. A computer was used to speed up production of the data with the opposite effect. One version indicates that the data had been sent to advanced data centers, such centers in Chicago, to compute everything. The research material could have been in an airplane, and the encryption could have been lost for some reason. Some people blame the disappearance of the data on the military regime, which began in 1964. According to sociologist Nelson do Valle\u2019s version, the material with the results was lost inside a warehouse at IBGE. Since we did not have the data from 1960, we could not demonstrate the decreased fertility rate because we only knew the data from 1940 and 1950. We restricted our study to the city of S\u00e3o Paulo; the results showed a decreasing fertility rate.<\/p>\n

One work I liked very much was the \u2018Program for the education of Black researchers\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few years later, the government implemented the AI-5 in December 1968, and you were terminated. The following year, CEBRAP was founded. How did it happen so quickly?<\/strong>
\nMy termination was attributed to the prestige of Fernando Henrique, who had the support of S\u00e3o Paulo businessmen who disagreed with the dictatorship, and the Ford Foundation, which made a large endowment to CEBRAP. In addition, his father and grandfather were military men, although this fact did not have a direct effect. Living in this house, which at that time was distant from everything, was terrible. The day after AI-5 started, I could not enter FSP. I lived here, far away, and became very isolated.<\/p>\n

However, this isolation became important at a certain point…<\/strong>
\nYes, I wanted to tell this story. I hid some young people here who were part of the armed struggle. This house was located on the outskirts of the city, where it was easier to shelter people who were being pursued. Nearly all ten of the people we hosted, including a pregnant girl, were subsequently killed by the regime. They did not stay for a long time: they arrived, they spent a few days, they left, and others took their place. Nobody knew anybody\u2019s name, neither my name nor Rubens, who was my husband at the time and who was connected to the Brazilian Communist Party, as was Villanova Artigas. I never joined a party. The young people who stayed here got bored and asked for something to do. They painted these tiles with burned oil [she points to part of the room]. They left that historic mark on this house. The house had just been finished and the tiles were made of natural brick.<\/p>\n

Did Rubens ever get arrested?<\/strong>
\nHe was arrested by OBAN [Operation Bandeirantes] in 1971. One Saturday, were having coffee after lunch, and he suddenly said, \u201cDon\u2019t move.\u201d He had seen people starting to come down the ramp toward our house. An OBAN group took him as a prisoner. He spent a few weeks there, even though his uncle was the State Secretary of Public Safety at the time.<\/p>\n

Why didn\u2019t you return to the university right after the Amnesty in 1979?<\/strong>
\nI received invitations from FSP from Oswaldo Forattini [1924\u20132007], who was director of the college at the time, and the IME [Institute of Mathematics and Statistics at USP]. With the 1968 University Reform that occurred while we were banned from the university, my discipline of statistical mathematics went to IME, which was actually the best place for it. To decide between FSP and IME, I locked myself in the house for 72 hours to make a decision. My heart chose FSP. When I told them I was returning, Forattini told me that I would have to be approved by the Faculty Board, which I thought was obvious. However, when the Board voted, 50% of the Board voted against me. Forattini cast a vote in my favor. I decided not to return. The most conservative people imaginable stayed at FSP. I stayed at CEBRAP, which turned out very well.<\/p>\n

How was the move to UNICAMP?<\/strong>
\nIn 1982, UNICAMP Dean Jos\u00e9 Aristodemo Pinotti [1934\u20132009] invited me. I accepted his invitation with the condition that I would have no participation in university bureaucracy. I also asked for carte blanche to create a research center. These centers at the university were in the creation phase. He had already reached the conclusion that the departments were too isolated and did not communicate with each other, and he wanted to establish communications. The research centers that he created achieved this goal. I created NEPO and coordinated it for several years, but I did not want to hold any positions, and I did not accumulate pensions.<\/p>\n

When do you consider that the study of demography was firmly established?<\/strong>
\nDemography has been established since the creation of ABEP in 1976, with the support of the Ford Foundation, and in the middle of the dictatorship. Today, we have CEDEPLAR at UFMG [Federal University of Minas Gerais], which is a beautiful center for demography, and NEPO. IBGE has achieved considerable progress with the National School of Statistics, which studies demographics; other centers exist. Ford financed ABEP because it had already funded several centers of excellence, including CEBRAP. In their experience, centers of excellence were not sufficient. An entity that connected the centers, such as associations, were needed. Ford funded several of these centers, such as ANPOCS [National Association for Graduate Studies and Research in Social Sciences], during the same period.<\/p>\n

What was your most significant work at CEBRAP? Do you have any favorites?<\/strong>
\nI worked on various important projects. One of the most interesting project was the \u201cNational Study on Human Reproduction,\u201d which was a multidisciplinary project that was performed from 1973 to 1978. This project was a continuation of the work that we began at FSP in 1965 on the reproduction of S\u00e3o Paulo women, which had been interrupted by the military regime firings. This study was a large study that explored the relationships between reproductive behavior and the various methods of organization of labor and production using an innovative theoretical\/methodological framework. The research plan was derived from a theoretical effort in the search for typologies of Brazilian regions, which included two dimensions: the dominant forms of the organization of production in each region and the methods of interaction between each region and the social division of labor during their development. In this study, a typology of the rural and urban sectors of Brazil was established in nine areas, from the rural servitude of Concei\u00e7\u00e3o do Araguaia in the state of Par\u00e1 to the capitalism and socioeconomic structure of S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 dos Campos in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo. This research strategy was established by Vilmar Faria and Juarez Brand\u00e3o Lopes [1925\u20132011]. The histories of each region were written by CEBRAP researchers, such as C\u00e2ndido Proc\u00f3pio, Fernando Henrique, Juarez, Vilmar, Neide Patarra, Octavio Ianni [1926\u20132004], Bol\u00edvar Lamounier, Vin\u00edcius Caldeira Brant [1941\u20131999], and Maria da Concei\u00e7\u00e3o Quinteiro. Fernando Henrique, for example, researched S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 dos Campos. This study involved CEBRAP in a unique manner. This situation has not reoccurred\u2014at least not in demography. Another project that I like very much is the \u201cProgram for the education of Black researchers,\u201d which was conducted out between 1994 and 1996. The MacArthur Foundation funded this project with a donation of US$2.3 million.<\/p>\n

Why Black researchers?<\/strong>
\nWe go back to the censuses. The item race\/color was in the census of 1940 and that of 1950; the 1960 census was not published; and in 1970, the military regime removed this information. There was a long period where we did not have any data about color. We did not know how the Black population was doing in Brazil. We felt the lack of that information. When the 1980 census came out, the Black population appeared there at the bottom in every indicator. I thought we needed to do something. I began to study Black demographics, did a study on the reproductive health of Black women between 1991 and 1993, published papers, and we held several seminars at CEBRAP on this topic. I also wanted to know about Black researchers. The problem was that when we held open competitions for research grants, Blacks never won\u2014white people won them. I decided to hold a specific competition with grants for Black researchers. In the first round of the program, I prepared four researchers, all with degrees in social sciences. For two years, they were trained to do field research and studied statistics and demography. Then, they did their doctoral work. They also researched the health of Black women. They went out in the field and filled out questionnaires, and then we did the analysis. We published this study. There is a video called Eu, mulher negra<\/em> [I, Black woman], with some of the research findings. I did the second round of the program because the MacArthur Foundation thought the first was incredible. Today, these researchers are working at universities throughout Brazil or international institutions.<\/p>\n

After performing research on these diverse fronts, what are the subjects for demography research that still excite you today?<\/strong>
\nI am interested in refugees. For example, NEPO has the Migration Observatory, which is coordinated by Rosana Baeninger. This subject is fundamental. In the area of reproduction, the delay issue is important. The problems of young people, such as sexually transmitted diseases, are relevant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researcher who revealed the changes in Brazilian reproductive behavior wants to know more about youth","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"coauthors":[465],"class_list":["post-281902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281923,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281902\/revisions\/281923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281902"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=281902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}