A partner-specific critique of mistimed and unwanted fertility: Results from an analysis of the 2017-2019 United States National Survey of Family Growth.

Abstract

Despite substantial critiques of retrospective measures of fertility intentions, researchers widely use the metrics of unwanted and mistimed pregnancies as tools for monitoring patterns and trends in reproductive health. However, in focusing exclusively on the timing and numeric elements of fertility these constructs ignore partner-specific desires, which may lead to considerable measurement error and threaten their validity. We use data on births in the last 5 years from the 2017-2019 United States National Survey of Family Growth to compare responses to the standard retrospective measure of fertility intentions with responses to a partner-specific question that asks respondents about whether they had ever desired a child with that partner. We find that women's responses to questions on retrospective fertility desires with and without reference to a particular partner vary in ways that suggest that women and researchers interpret these questions differently. Despite a long history in fertility research, the standard approach to measuring mistimed and unwanted fertility is both conceptually and operationally flawed. In the context of complicated sexual and reproductive lives that do not start and end with a single partner, researchers should reevaluate the usefulness of the constructs of mistimed and unwanted fertility. We conclude by offering recommendations for analysts and survey designers as well as by calling for a move away from the terms entirely to focus instead on the pregnancies that women themselves view as most problematic.