Title not available in English.

Abstract

Some questions for the demography of the nineties. Even if very superficially, this paper approaches some demographic questions which should be present at the turn of the Century. 1) Unity of analysis: the unfeasibility of continuing to use the individual as a unit of analysis to describe vital processes and the difficulty of taking the relations between individuals to describe such processes, is discussed. 2) Demographic metabolism: increments and decrements, through which a population is modified. The need to isolate that which is a direct result of demographic movements and inertia (recursive movements of demographic variables) from determinants of other nature. 3) Interpretative views that begin to appear: soma studies about fertility and family paint to the hypothesis of convergency in demographic behaviour. These questions are still incipient in Brazil, that is, there are few efforts in the direction of theoretical formulations which would explain the rapid changes that are occurring in fertility and in the family structure and composition.