FP-21-01 Twenty Years of Change in Unintended Births

Although unintended childbearing has declined in recent years (Finer and Zolna, 2016; Jones and Jerman, 2017), reducing unintended childbearing remains a public health goal in the U.S. due to its links to poorer outcomes for mothers, children, and families (Healthy People 2030). In this profile, we investigate trends in birth intendedness among women 15-44 between 1997 and 2018 using the 2002, 2006-10, 2011-15, and 2015-19 cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth1. Birth intendedness is based on a series of questions in which women were asked to characterize each birth as on time, mistimed (wanted but occurring earlier than desired), or unwanted (the respondent did not want any births at all or no additional births). When births were reported as mistimed, women were asked how much earlier than desired the birth occurred, and we categorize mistimed births into two groups: slightly mistimed (less than two years earlier than desired) or seriously mistimed (two or more years too early). This profile is an update of FP-17-08 and is the first in a three-part series on unintended fertility in the U.S

FP-21-03 Mothers’ Experiences of Unintended Childbearing, 2017

The majority of births in recent years are intended (FP-21-01), but many mothers nonetheless experience unintended fertility. In this profile, we examine the share of mothers aged 45-49 who have ever experienced unintended childbearing (having any births that are not ‘on time’) for the year 2017, using the 2015-2019 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth. Unintended births were identified from a series of questions in which women were asked to characterize each birth as on time, mistimed (wanted but occurring earlier than desired), or unwanted (the respondent did not want any births at all, or no additional births). When births were reported as too early, women were asked how much earlier than desired the birth occurred, and we categorize mistimed births into two groups: slightly mistimed (less than two years earlier than desired) or seriously mistimed (two or more years too early). This profile is an update of FP-17-101 and the third in a series on unintended childbearing