25 Years of Induced Abortions in Europe

This article provides descriptive evidence on induced abortions over the past 25 years in Eastern, Northern, Western, and Southern Europe, combining publicly available abortion data with restricted-access administrative datasets. We document diverse abortion-related institutional environments across European regions, the evolution of the total abortion rate, and differences by age, parity, and education. We find a decreasing trend with strong convergence across European countries, regardless of institutional settings and social norms. The largest declines occurred in Eastern Europe, while rates changed comparatively little elsewhere. The declines were the steepest among women with at least one child. Abortion rates were consistently the highest among women with primary education and lowest among those with tertiary education. However, the long period of convergence appears to have come to an end recently: since 2021, abortion rates have risen substantially in several Northern, Western, and Southern European countries, while continuing to decline in Eastern Europe.