INDUCED-ABORTION IN THE DEVELOPING-WORLD - INDIRECT ESTIMATES

An analysis of Demographic and Health Survey data provides indirect es timates of the prevalence of abortion in 21 developing countries by re arranging Bongaarts's proximate determinants model to allow calculatio n of the index of abortion from the other principal proximate determin ants of fertility (marriage, contraceptive use and postpartum insuscep tibility to pregnancy), average fetal fecundity and total fertility. O n average, abortion appears to have an influence on fertility similar to that of contraceptive use. This influence appears to be particularl y strong in the four Latin American countries in the analysis, where a bortion reduces fertility by 38-55%. In contrast, abortion's fertility -reducing effect is only 6-19% in the Near East and 0-32% in Africa. I n five countries for which two sets of DHS data are available, this re ductive effect appears to have increased over time.