Citation
Rajan, Sowmya; Morgan, S. Philip; Harris, Kathleen Mullan; Guilkey, David K.; Hayford, Sarah R.; & Guzzo, Karen Benjamin (2017). Trajectories of Unintended Fertility. Population Research and Policy Review, 36(6), 903-928. PMCID: PMC5844575Abstract
Having an unintended birth is strongly associated with the likelihood of having later unintended births. We use detailed longitudinal data from the Add Health Study (N = 8300) to investigate whether a host of measured sociodemographic, personality, and psychosocial characteristics select women into this “trajectory” of unintended childbearing. While some measured characteristics and aspects of the unfolding life course are related to unintended childbearing, explicitly modeling these effects does not greatly attenuate the association of an unintended birth with a subsequent one. Next, we statistically control for unmeasured time-invariant covariates that affect all birth intervals, and again find that the association of an unintended birth with subsequent ones remains strong. This persistent, strong association may be the direct result of experiencing an earlier unintended birth. We propose several mechanisms that might explain this strong association.URL
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-017-9443-3Reference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2017Journal Title
Population Research and Policy ReviewAuthor(s)
Rajan, SowmyaMorgan, S. Philip
Harris, Kathleen Mullan
Guilkey, David K.
Hayford, Sarah R.
Guzzo, Karen Benjamin