Does contraceptive prevalence correspond to abortion levels in Europe? Evaluation of the GGS data quality

Alexandre Avdeev, Université de Paris I, Sorbonne
Irina Troitskaia, Moscow State University

In the end of the 1970s John Bongaarts described, in his model of proximate determinants of fertility, quite strong relations between fertility, induced abortion and contraceptive prevalence and effectiveness. The authors doing comparative research on contraceptive behaviour in several european countries on the basis of the 1st wave of the European survey « Generations and Gender » found some mismatch between observed fertility and abortion level, on one hand, and estimated contraceptive prevalence, on the other hand. Using the Bongaarts model and combining the official statistics of fertility and induced abortion with contraceptive prevalence and effectiveness estimated on the basis of GGP national surveys, the authors evaluate the quality of information on contraceptive use in eleven countries : Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Romania and Russia.