Household demographic factors as life cycle determinants of land use in the Amazon

This paper seeks to broaden the application of demography to environmental studies by complementing existing macro-level approaches, which feature agg regate populations, with a micro-level approach that highlights household l ife cycles. I take up the case of small farm households in the Brazilian Am azon to present a theoretical framework that identifies demographic charact eristics which dispose families to engage in different forms of land use as household age structures change. Empirical models show that net of the eff ects of fanner back.-round, neighborhood context, institutional context, an d off-farm incomes, demographic variables indicative of the household life cycle exert significant effects on the prominence of land uses with distinc t environmental ramifications. The findings not only reveal microlevel demo graphic factors which affect Amazon land cover, they yield implications for future changes in rainforest landscapes in northern Brazil, and suggest ho usehold life cycle models as an avenue for further demographic research on environmental change in Latin America and other contexts.