These break-ups were not just a result of machismo: from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s about 30% of female lead characters in novelas were unfaithful to their partners. The researchers found that between 1975, when divorce was first mooted, and 1984 about one in five of the main characters in Globo soaps were divorced or separated, a higher percentage than in the real Brazil. The effect on divorce was smaller, but noticeable. That is equivalent to the drop in the birth rate associated with a woman having two extra years of schooling Controlling for other factors, the arrival of Globo was associated with a decline of 0.6 percentage points in the probability of a woman giving birth in a given year. The papers argue that the small, happy families portrayed on television contributed to this trend. This was because women moved to cities and opted to have fewer babies.
The results are most striking for the total fertility rate, which dropped from 6.3 children per woman in 1960 to 2.3 in 2000, despite contraception being officially discouraged for some of that time. How much impact do the soaps have on real life? As recounted in papers from the Inter-American Development Bank, researchers tracked Globo's expansion across the country and compared this to data on fertility and divorce. Their plots often tilt in a progressive direction: AIDS is discussed, condoms are promoted and social mobility exemplified. Their scriptwriters and directors, many of whom were on the left, saw them as a tool with which to reach the masses. National news was meant to do the job, but the soaps got the audience.
The generals subsidised sales of television sets to build a sense of nationhood in a large and then largely illiterate country. The soaps blossomed under Brazil's military regime of 1964-85.
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