A cross-national comparison of contraception and abortion laws

Abstract

Although there have been a number of descriptive studies of the population policies of nations throughout the world, no systematic study that employs standardized population policy measures has been carried out. Employing recent United Nations data this study develops a contraceptive policy measure related to the sale and distribution of pills, condoms and IUDs throughout the world. United Nations data is also employed to differentiate abortion policies throughout the world. Dividing the nations of the world into developed, developing and underdeveloped nations, the previously mentioned measures are related to the socioeconomic, political, demographic and medical characteristics of the nations. The contraceptive policy measures are found to be significantly linked with infant mortality rates, while the abortion policy measures are found to be linked with the religious and political characteristics of the nations. Comparing these two policy measures for a subset of the nations, it is found that different factors are predictive of these two policy measures. The paper concludes by arguing that population researchers should see these two population control measures as involving two different types of population control.