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. 2022 Jan 6;17(1):e0261509.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261509. eCollection 2022.

The impact of COVID-19 on fertility behaviour and intentions in a middle income country

Tom Emery  1 , Judith C Koops  2
Affiliations

The impact of COVID-19 on fertility behaviour and intentions in a middle income country

Tom Emery et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The COVID Pandemic may affect fertility behaviour and intentions in many ways. Restrictions on service provision reduce access to family planning services and increase fertility in the short term. By contrast, the economic uncertainty brought about by the pandemic and its impact on mental health and well-being may reduce fertility. These various pathways have been explored in the context of high income countries such as the United States and Western Europe, but little is known about middle income countries. In this paper we asses the impact of the COVID pandemic on fertility intentions and behaviour in the Republic of Moldova, a middle income country in Eastern Europe, using the Generations and Gender Survey. This survey was conducted partially before and partially after the onset of the pandemic in 2020, allowing for detailed comparisons of individual circumstances. The results indicate that the pandemic reduced the used of intrauterine devices, and increased the use of male condoms, but with no overall decrease in contraceptive use. Conversely individuals interviewed after the onset of the pandemic were 34.5% less likely to be trying to conceive, although medium term fertility intentions were unchanged. Indicators therefore suggest that in the medium term fertility intentions may not be affected by the pandemic but restricted access to contraception requiring medical consultation and a decrease in short-term fertility intentions could disrupt short term family planning.

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Conflict of interest statement

No authors have competing interests.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Cumulative cases of COVID-19 per thousand as of 21st December 2020.
Source—https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/md; Authors’ own illustration; Reprinted under a CC BY license, with permission from UNHCR, original copyright 2021: https://data.humdata.org/dataset/moldova-administrative-level-0-1-boundaries.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Cumulative cases of COVID-19 and timeline of events [16]; Authors’ own vizualization and annotations.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Proportion of 18-49 year old’s that are currently trying to conceive, using modern contraceptive methods, that have had sex in the last four weeks and that have fertility intentions in the next 3 years.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Marginal effects at the mean of contraceptive use pre and post lockdown.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.