Future low fertility prospects in Mongolia? An evaluation of the factors that support having a child

Reconciling discrepancies between registration-based and survey-based estimates of fertility in Mongolia

The two main data sources for the estimation of total fertility in Mongolia give figures that differ by between one-half and one child per woman. We investigated two possible explanations for these discrepancies: (i) that data on births collected in the vital registration system are incomplete and under-estimate fertility; and (ii) that fertility is over-estimated when estimates are based on data from sample surveys. We find that the under-counting of single women is the main source of the discrepancies. After adjustment, survey-based fertility estimates are very close to the figures based on data from the vital registration system. The analysis underscores the risks of taking survey-based demographic indicators as the 'Gold Standard'. Demographers need to undertake more systematic studies on this important issue.

Health system reform and safe abortion: a case study of Mongolia

Unsafe abortion serves as a marker of global inequity as it is concentrated in the developing world where the poorest and most vulnerable women live. While liberalisation of abortion law is essential to the reduction of unsafe abortion, a number of challenges exist beyond this important step. This paper investigates how popular health system reforms consonant with neoliberal agendas can challenge access to safe abortion. We use Mongolia, a country that has liberalised abortion law, yet, limited access to safe abortion, as a case study. Mongolia embraced market reforms in 1990 and subsequently reformed its health system. We document how common reforms in the areas of finance and regulation can compromise the safety of abortions as they foster challenges that include inconsistencies in service delivery that further foment health inequities, adoption of reproductive health programmes that are incompatible with the local sociocultural context, unregulated growth of the private sector and poor enforcement of standards and technical guidelines for safe abortion. We then discuss how this case study suggests the conversations that reproductive health policy-makers must have with those engineering health sector reform to ensure access to safe abortion in a liberalised environment.