under the best conditions
MEASUREMENT FILE GGS-II 2020-2023
The same low birth number can hide two different gaps.
For readers of demographic statistics, the GGS-II table used by BiB shows women in Moldova reporting, on average, 2.68 ideal children, 2.40 intended children, and 1.60 already born. This page separates desire, plan and biography so a measured difference does not become a cause by suggestion. Choose Finland to see whether the same distance sits in the same place.
EVIDENCE
BiB Working Paper 2/2025, Table 1
LIMIT
women 18-49, weighted means, no current Romanian GGS-II value
01 / COMPARABLE LEDGER
Ideal intended actual
Choose a country. The definitions stay fixed; only the BiB table values change.
women 18-49 weighted means
Three columns for the ideal, intended and actual number of children, followed by two bars for the measured distances.
ideal intended
0.28
intended actual
0.80
For Moldova: the ideal is 0.28 children above intention, and intention is 0.80 children above the actual number. These are differences between measures, not causes.
Numeric source: BiB, Table 1. These are means, not promises about any person.
02 / ANSWER BEFORE EXPLANATION
The wider distance is the one to actual.
In Moldova, intended fertility is 0.80 children above the reported actual number, while the ideal is 0.28 above intention. In Finland, the same two distances are 0.72 and 0.36. This tells us where the difference sits in the table, not why it exists.
Ideal intended
0.28What changes when a best-conditions answer is brought back to the respondent’s situation.
Intended actual
0.80The distance between a stated plan and the number of children already reported at the survey point.
Read it correctly: the two gaps are descriptive measures. They are not judgements about families and they do not prove that an attitude produced a particular number of births.
03 / THREE QUESTIONS, THREE ANSWERS
One column is not another.
What would be wanted under the best conditions?
BiB uses the personal ideal number of children as a measure of desired family size under the best conditions of life.
Which plan takes the situation into account?
Intention is closer to the respondent’s context: health, partnership, housing and occupation may enter the answer.
What number has already been reported?
It is the total number of biological children reported, whether with a current or previous partner or outside cohabitation.
The arrows are a reading order, not a causal path for the same person. A cross-sectional survey compares answers; it does not film the same family over time.
04 / SAME TABLE, ANOTHER COUNTRY
Moldova and Finland keep the same shape, not the same measure.
Both countries are in Table 1. Each row uses the same analytical population and units, while field periods are the country-specific periods listed by BiB.
| Country | Ideal | Intended | Actual | Ideal − intended | Intended − actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moldova | 2.68 | 2.40 | 1.60 | 0.28 | 0.80 |
| Finland | 2.18 | 1.82 | 1.10 | 0.36 | 0.72 |
Observations in the source table: Moldova 2,234, Finland 1,224. Observation counts are not population estimates. For each displayed row, the ideal-to-actual gap is the sum of the two displayed gaps, within two-decimal rounding.
05 / DECADE CONTEXT, WITHOUT A FALSE CAUSE
NBER and CEPR show a change in answers, not a closed explanation.
Working Paper 35651 and its CEPR DP21864 version report two round-to-round comparisons. They sharpen the background tension, but they do not attach to the BiB table or demonstrate a cause.
Average ideal number of children, 2012 versus 2022.
Share intending a child within the next three years, between comparable rounds.
Source limit: the authors call the analysis an accounting exercise, not a causal one. These are survey rounds with new samples, and ISSP ideal fertility is not the same question as GGS intention.
Sources: NBER Working Paper 35651 and CEPR DP21864.
06 / CONTEXT IS NOT THE SAME SAMPLE
Costs may appear in answers, but population comes first.
Nearly one in five reproductive-age adults in a separate 14-country survey believed they would be unable to have the number of children they desired.
39%reported that financial limitations had affected or would affect their ability to realise their desired family size.
See the UNFPA sourceThe UNECE page lists Romania among countries planning a first GGS-II wave in 2025-2026. The BiB table used here has Moldova, not a Romanian value.
Moldova is not a proxy for Romania. Missing data is not a zero.
See GGS-II status07 / METHOD IN THE MARGIN
The formula is simple. The limits are not optional.
ideal − intended2.68 − 2.40 = 0.28Moldova
intended − actual2.40 − 1.60 = 0.80Moldova
ideal − actual2.68 − 1.60 = 1.08check, rounded to two decimals
- Population
- Women aged 18-49 with non-missing information for all three measures.
- Unit
- Mean number of children. Not a fertility rate, forecast or recommendation.
- Data
- GGS-II: Moldova 2020, Finland 2021-2022; BiB reports weighting and sample adjustments.
- Romania
- Not in the displayed comparison. We do not fill the gap with an approximation.
Read the figures as a map of distances between answers and biography, not as a recipe for what a family should look like.
SOURCES AND REPRODUCTION
Every number has a place in the archive.
- BiB Working Paper 2/2025. Table 1 provides GGS-II values and differences for 11 countries. Official PDF
- NBER 35651 / CEPR DP21864. Round context for ideal and intention, with the accounting-not-causality limit. NBER CEPR
- UNFPA State of World Population 2025. Separate context on realising intentions in the 14-country YouGov survey. Official report
- UNECE Generations and Gender. GGS-II status and the Romania boundary. Official page
The local archive, formulas and source hashes are in sources/ and data/evidence.json. Original source files are not exposed as public assets.