Decrease of reproductive desires of nonparent heterosexual women during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland: Epidemiological stress, socio-economic status and reproductive rights

Urszula M Marcinkowska ¹ Krzysztof Kasparek ² Michał Zabdyr-Jamróz ¹ Marta Kozłowska ³ Ilona Nenko ^1*

• ¹ Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland
• ² Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Lesser Poland, Poland
• ³ Institute for Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Lower Saxony, Germany

Introduction: Deterioration of economic conditions, societal uncertainty, and negative expectations about the future have all been linked to delayed childbearing plans. All these negative circumstances can be related to the epidemiological stress, which in turn becomes one of the culprits for changes in fertility plans. This study aims to analyse what individual factors decrease the probability of wanting to have children after the exposure to epidemiological stress in the form of the Corona Virus Disease 2019, COVID-19, pandemic. Methods: recruitment was conducted between April and July 2021. Particiapnts who were heterosexual, nonparent, non pregnant women without diagnosed infertility completed an online, anynymous survey providing information on: socio-demographics variables, COVID-19 exposure, COVID-19 related stress, changes in their reproductive desires. Multiple logistic regression models were used to analyse the data. Participants were also provided a possibility to give a descriptive explanation for the change in fertility desires due to pandemic or political situation (abortion restrictions co-occuring with pandemic in Poland), that was then used for a qualitative analyses.Results: 706 participants completed the survey (mean age =28.11, SD = 4.87, min = 19, max = 47). We have found that: 1) for 43.3% of repondents the desire to have children decreased; 2) more epidemiologically stressed women more frequently declared decrease in desired number of children than the less stressed ones after adjusting for potential covariates (aOR=1.064, 95%CI=1.03-1.10, p<0.001). Disease exposure yielded no significant results (aOR=0.862, 95% CI=0.73-1.02, p=0.072). Additionally, 70% of particiapnts declared decrease in the willingness to have children due to the political situation. All results from models controlling for age, education, residency type, socio-economic and relationship status.Conclusions: Thesituation in Poland during COVID-19 restrictions provided a unique combination of political and epidemiological stressors, showing that women's reproductive desires are related with pandemic stress (less so with the exposure to disease) and limitation of reproductive righs.