Wanted and Unwanted Childbearing: United States, 1973-82

Abstract

A substantial decline in births that were unwanted at conception occured between 1973 and 1982 according to results from the National Survey of Family Growth conducted in both years by the National Center for Health Statistics. In 1982 less than 10% of all births to ever married women in the childbearing years had been unwanted at conception compared with 14% in 1973. The statistics on wantedness and the timing status of births presented in this report for 1982 are preliminary results from Cycle III of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Data were collected from a multistage area probability sample of 7969 women aged 15-44 years regardless of marital status in the noninstitutionalized population of the counterminous US. Between August 1982 and February 1983 interviews were conducted with 3201 black women and 4768 women of other races. Comparative data for 1973 were used but which excluded most never married women. Sampling variability survey design and definitions of terms used in the report are discussed in the Technical Notes. The concept of wantedness and the trend in the wantedness of births among ever married and never married women are explored. The wantedness of each birth was determined from a series of questions that asked whether the women had wanted the pregnancy at the time conception occurred. The pregnancy was classified as wanted at conception if the woman had stopped or was not using contraception because she wanted to become pregnant or if she had wanted or probably had wanted another child at some time; the pregnancy was classified as unwanted if she had not wanted or probably had not wanted another child. In 1982 the proportion of all births that were unwanted at conception increased steadily with age among ever married women from 5% for 15-19 years to 13% for women aged 40-44. The changes observed among all ever married women between 1973 and 1982 largely were due to significant increases in the proportions of unwanted births among women aged 25-39 years. The differences between wanted and unwanted births in white women compared with black women are even greater than the differences by marital status (32% unwanted births in black women and 11% unwanted births in white women). Births to never married women were wanted at conception (75%) less frequently than those born to ever married women (90%) but the proportion of wanted births to never married women was nonetheless high.