The University of Barcelona participated in a study that uses an unexpected change of government in Spain -the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, (PSOE) defeated the PP, against the odds, in the March 2004 general election - to examine whether changes in economic expectations had affected births, abortions and marriages.
The study shows that the electoral surprise - all the polls had predicted a PP victory - had an asymmetric impact on expectations. While supporters of the winning party (PSOE) became more optimistic about the economy, confidence among supporters of the losing party (the PP) declined sharply. This abrupt change had immediate demographic consequences: in the months following the election, municipalities with the strongest support for the PP saw a decline in pregnancies, a temporary but significant rise in abortions and a decrease in marriages.
The study, published in the Journal of Population Economics , was carried out by Llibertat González, from the Department of Economics and Business at Pompeu Fabra University and the Barcelona School of Economics (BSE); Luis Guirola, from the
Institute for Research on Applied Regional and Public Economics at the UB, and Blanca Zapater, from the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce.
The study shows several notable effects of the change of government on expectations and demographics:
- Impact on expectations: the unexpected change of government in 2004 caused a sharp and persistent deterioration in the economic expectations of PP supporters (in the two months following the election, the expectations index fell by between 0.6 and 0.8 points). The study suggests that this decline is larger than the difference in expectations between a period of economic expansion and one of economic crisis.
- Decline in pregnancies: in municipalities with the strongest support for the PP, researchers recorded an immediate decrease in the number of monthly pregnancies, equivalent to 0.14 fewer pregnancies per thousand women.
- Increase in abortions: in these same places with more PP voters, during the month following the elections there was a rapid and transient rise in the rate of voluntary terminations of pregnancy of almost 0.05 per thousand women. This magnitude is comparable to the demographic effect of the introduction in 2007of the €2,500 cheque bebé (lump-sum payment).
- Decline in marriages: consistent with the increase in abortions, the study finds a short-term decline in marriages following a premarital pregnancy (0.048 fewer marriages per thousand women), as well as a more persistent reduction in the overall marriage rate (by 0.05 fewer marriages per case).
