Contraceptive Failure Among Married Women in the United States, 1970-1973

Abstract

A failure rate of 7% of those wishing to delay birth and 4% of those wishing to prevent any future birth is cited for married U.S. women in the 1st year of using some form of contraception. Data are taken from a 1973 National Survey of Family Growth for the period 1970-1973. Failure in the 1st year of use of individual nonpermanent contraceptive methods range from 2% for those using the pill to 19% for those using the rhythm method. Older women are less likely to experience the failure of a contraceptive method than those women who are relatively younger. The 2% of users found in the oldest age bracket who experienced failure of a method in the 1st year of use is considerably lower than the 8.5% for the youngest age bracket. 7% of those trying to delay pregnancy in the oldest age group failed as compared with 11% for the youngest group. No significant difference was found between rates for blacks and whites for failure in the 1st year. However 7% of the whites fail to delay a pregnancy wanted later compared with 4% for blacks. 2nd-year failure rates are much lower than 1st-year rates. There appears to be no significant difference between failure rates based on race religion education or duration of marriage.(AUTHORS MODIFIED)