Pope John Paul II's Visits to Latin America Boosted Fertility Rates
Could the pope help reverse the birth dearth?
Note: Ironically, the timing of this story with the death of Pope Francis and subsequent election of Pope Leo was not planned…we began working on it before Pope Francis died.
New research suggests an unconventional antidote could help slow the world’s plummeting birth rates: visits from the pope. Between 1979 and 1996, the late Pope John Paul II made trips to more than a dozen countries across Latin America. The public events were attended by millions of people and left a significant imprint on those present.
A recent working paper from three economists shows the visits had a positive long-term impact on fertility rates in those countries. Specifically, for all but one of the 16 trips studied, the pope’s appearance had a statistically significant positive effect on fertility rates in the 2-5 years after the visit (there was not a noticeable effect in the first year following the visit).
In total, the authors estimate an additional 220,000 to 250,000 babies were born in the years following the papal visits across the 13 countries in the sample, representing a 0.3 - 0.4% increase in total births during those periods. While the percentage increase may seem small, the fact that the papal visit as a single unique factor had a measurable effect on birth rates is notable (full paper).
Interestingly, the increase in fertility rates was concentrated among “first births” rather than among women that already had children. Consistent with this finding, the authors also found that the increase in fertility rates was largest among 1) wealthier and more educated women, 2) those who did not identify as Catholic, and 3) among those who were more likely to have actually heard the pope’s message. This was measured by looking at the change in fertility rates for women that lived within the specific region visited by the pope compared to the country overall.
Further, the content of the pope’s message appears to have made a difference. For example, more mentions of marriage resulted in larger fertility increases. The authors gathered data on papal speeches, sourced from the Vatican’s archives, and analyzed the content for mentions of terms such as marriage, premarital sex, and abortion and contraception.
The research was conducted by Professors Lakshmi Iyer (Notre Dame), Vivek Moorthy (College of the Holy Cross), and Paloma Lopez de mesa Moyano (Emory University). The group utilized Demographic and Health Survey data from USAID surveys to construct fertility histories of women in the relevant countries and time periods of the papal visits.
The genesis of the research question
The News Memo had the chance to speak with Professor Paloma Lopez de mesa Moyano, one of the authors. She shared with us that the idea for the paper was born in part from conversations she had with her mother and grandmother.
A native of Colombia herself, Moyano’s mother and grandmother were alive during John Paul II’s 1986 visit to Colombia and they recounted how the pope’s visit made their faith feel more relevant and helped strengthen the communal bonds among the people. In short, the visits - whether in Colombia or Guatemala - were significant cultural events that brought together millions of people in a common fascination and widespread love of a person: John Paul II, the leader of the Catholic Church.
It was this insight that sparked the question for Moyano: “what was the relationship between the pope’s visit and fertility rates?”
An open question
At the start of their research, Moyano and her colleagues hypothesized that “these visits, while not directly aimed at influencing fertility, likely heightened existing Catholic norms,” which encourage marriage and procreation and discourage artificial contraception, premarital sex, and abortion.
Thus, the group didn’t know what they would find because an increase in marriage and reductions in contraception and abortion would increase fertility (all things equal), while reductions in pre-marital sex would reduce fertility. In the end, the pro-fertility factors emerged stronger.
The ripple effect of the papal visits
As part of the research, the authors collected photos related to the pope’s visits, which are typically included in the oral presentations of the paper to help illustrate the far-reaching and long-lasting cultural impact of the pope’s visits. While the photos do not make it into the academic paper, they tell dimensions of the story that data and figures can’t capture.
For example, during one visit Frito-Lay produced special-edition JPII-themed potato chips. Pocket-sized photo cards with the image of the pope were distributed.
Millions of people attended the speeches in person and the pope’s message and image were amplified for many months after the visits in the form of radio and TV programs, homilies from priests, and films. One such instance is the movie El niño y el Papa (The Boy and the Pope), a film that Moyano said is stuck in her memory given how many times she watched it as a child during Holy Week. Another film was El baño del Papa (The Pope’s Toilet), which tells the story of a couple in Uruguay that created a mobile restroom business ahead of the pope’s visit.
These “ripple effects” are one way that Moyano and her colleagues help explain the fact that the observed increase in fertility rates occurred in the 2-5 years after the pope’s visit, not immediately after. The visits planted seeds that would later sprout.
The paper comes at an opportune time
The research comes at a seemingly providential time in light of the death of Pope Francis and election of Pope Leo. However, the paper is the fruit of many years of work that started before the pandemic. Moyano told The News Memo that the paper is attracting good attention in the economics community and public policy space more broadly given the bleak demographic situation many countries currently face. The authors are scheduled to present the paper at a top-tier National Bureau of Economic Research conference in May.