Thread by @lymanstoneky

Whenever people say, "Lyman, OBVIOUSLy demographers understand there won't be a pandemic baby boom!"

I mean, UNFPA official outlets are promoting a baby boom narrative! philippines.unfpa.org/en/news/signif…

At the release for UNFPA's big global annual report in the Philippines, the media highlight was about how COVID-19 will cause a huge rise (25%!) in unintended pregnancies in the Philippines.

I haven't been able to figure out what that is based on in terms of data.

At about 26 minutes here the explanation starts. It's based papers published by Guttmacher and JHU, and back-of-the-envelope estimates of changes in contraception.

Underlying Guttmacher paper is here.

They say that a "conservative" estimate of COVID's effect, a 10% decline in contraceptive use, will lead to **15 million** more births globally.

That's like a 12% increase in total global fertility.

If you think the elasticity of births globally vs. short-run modern contraceptive usage is ***1.2*** then you may be in need of a biology lesson.

They're literally forecasting that a third of women nudged off of modern contraception will conceive children they would not have otherwise.

A third of reproductive-age women not using contraceptives normally do not conceive in a given 6 month period!

In a given *year*, in countries with *extremely high* birth rates like Burkina Faso, about 30% of non-pregnant, non-contracepting women will conceive a child.

So in, say, a 6-month period, you'd expect *half* that number.

But that's in Burkina Faso. In the Philippines, in the 2017 DHS, it looks like about ***13%*** of non-pregnant, non-contracepting, prime-age women would get pregnant in a given year. So about 6-7% in a given 6-month period.

So you'd expect a 10% reduction in contraception to shift 10% of the current contraceptors to non-contraception over a 6-month period, the share of non-contraceptors conceiving rises from about 13.4% to about 14%.

For that to be a 42% increase in unintended fertility as UNFPA says for the Philippines, you'd have to assume that previously unintended pregnancy made up just 9% of all pregnancies. In reality, Guttmacher reports that ***54%*** of pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended.

So they've probably *dramatically* overestimated these effects.

In sum:

Folks, it is simply not the case that one out of every three women who can't access contraception for a few weeks or months will conceive in that timeframe. Nope. Not reality.