Generational Changes in Attitudes to Abortion: A Cross-National Comparison

Abstract

In this paper I examine generational changes in men and women's attitudes to abortion across nations and time. First, I use time-series data from British Social Attitudes and the General Social Survey of the United States to track men and women's changing attitudes. In particular, I investigate whether change is due mainly to period effects or to cohort replacement. I also compare the trajectory and pace of change in the two countries. Second, I use data from the International Social Survey Programme to compare Anglo-American attitudes with those of four other nations (Ireland, Germany, Sweden, and Poland) that have very different abortion policies. Although gender differences in attitudes to abortion are rare, generational differences tend to be conditioned on gender. As predicted, post-pill cohorts of women adopt a more favourable stance than earlier cohorts. In Britain, over the last decade, women's attitudes have become more liberal far more rapidly than men's, resulting in a gender gap in the 1990s. Gender differences in generational effects are apparent in the six-nation comparison, even when religion is taken into account. It is argued that rising expectations concerning reproductive control, together with generational succession and increasing secularization, will further increase endorsement of abortion but is unlikely to eradicate policy dispute.