The Perverse Effect of Population Policies. A Case Study

Cristina Bradatan, Pennsylvania State University

Europe became one of the regions with the lowest rates of fertility in the World. The articles dedicated to this subject considered mainly two explanation : the shock of the political and economic transition and the poverty which affected this region after 1989 (Eberstadt, 1994). Although these two factors obviously affected the fertility, there are some other factors which could play an important role. In the present paper, I would like to focus on a different explanation for the case study of Romania: the influence of former policy fertility regulations on the present evolutions of fertility. Basically, the idea is that the huge change in fertility following the interdiction of abortion in October 1966 (the number of births almost doubled in 1967-1969 in comparison with 1966) created a marriage squeeze (too few men) and had implications on the number of marriages and in the average age at first marriage for women. These changes affected the number of children born within the marriage and, in a country as Romania where the number of children born outside of marriage is still low, affected the overall fertility. In order to prove the existence of marriage squeeze I will use the models developed by Schoen (Modeling Multigroup Populations, 1987) marriage squeeze index and number of marriages lost because of the marriage squeeze. The number of births lost because of the marriage squeeze will be also computed. The number of births lost because of abortions will be computed using statistics of Romanian Ministry of Health. Evolution of fertility in Romania will be studied using data from Romanian National Institute for Statistics. The results of the paper will support the idea that population policies adopted by former communist government had unpredicted effects on the present fertility evolutions in Eastern Europe.