Christine Valente on Subjective expectations and demand for contraception

Christine Valente presents at the WIDER Seminar Series on 21 September 2022.

Subjective expectations and demand for contraception

Co-authors: Grant Miller and Aureo de Paula

Abstract

One-quarter of married, fertile-age women in Sub-Saharan Africa report not wanting a pregnancy and yet do not practice contraception. The authors collect detailed data on the subjective beliefs of married, adult women not wanting a pregnancy and estimate a structural model of contraceptive choices.  Both their structural model and a validation exercise using an exogenous shock to beliefs show that correcting women's beliefs about pregnancy risk absent contraception can increase use considerably. Their structural estimates further indicate that costly interventions like eliminating supply constraints would only modestly increase contraceptive use, while confirming the importance of partners' preferences highlighted in related literature.

There is a link to the latest version of the paper on her personal website.

About the author

Christine Valente is a Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol, UK and an IZA Research Fellow. She received an undergraduate degree (“Maîtrise”) and research Master’s degree (“DEA”) from Université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Sheffield in 2001, 2002 and 2008 respectively. 

Her main research interests lie in household decisions regarding fertility and human capital investments in developing countries. She has published a number of applied microeconometric studies in, among others, the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Health Economics and Journal of Applied Econometrics and has led research projects funded by major UK- and international funders. 

WIDER Seminar Series

The WIDER Seminar Series showcases the latest research on key topics in development economics. It provides a forum for senior and early-career researchers, both in-house and external, to present recent and ongoing work related to UNU-WIDER’s current work programme.

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