6 research outputs found
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The Impact of the Zika Epidemic on Women’s Reproductive Intentions and Behaviors in Brazil
This research brief reports on a focus group study that explores how and why the Zika virus affects reproductive processes in Brazil. The authors found that both reproductive intentions and behaviors changed as a result of the Zika epidemic among women from low and high socioeconomic status groups in two areas of Brazil. The authors argue that Brazilian health officials and policymakers should reduce barriers to contraceptive use, address longstanding disparities in reproductive health services that put low-income women at disproportionate risk of an unwanted pregnancy, legalize abortion, and show respect and support to women who actively pursue pregnancy during the Zika epidemic.Population Research Cente
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Having Children and Forming Marital Unions as Adolescents Negatively Impact Educational Outcomes for Brazilian Women
Women who have their first child during adolescence tend to have worse social and economic outcomes compared to women who have their first child later in life or those who have no children. But it is not always clear if having a child while young is the cause of poor outcomes in adulthood or if teenage mothers’ previous disadvantages are the primary cause of those outcomes. The role that early union formation plays is also unclear. This brief, from PRC faculty research associate Leticia Marteleto and PRC graduate student trainee Aida Villanueva, evaluates the causal effects of adolescent childbearing and early union on young women’s educational attainment in Brazil. Using methodologies to account for teenage mothers’ selectivity into early childbearing, the authors demonstrate the ways early childbearing and early union formation negatively impact women’s educational attainment.Population Research Cente
Scars from a Previous Epidemic: Social Proximity to Zika and Fertility Intentions during the COVID-19 Pandemic
We examine whether women’s social proximity to Zika during the Zika epidemic predicts intentions to avoid a pregnancy because of the COVID-19 pandemic either directly or indirectly via subjective assessments of the pandemic. We apply path models on unique microdata from Brazil, the country most affected by Zika and an epicenter of COVID-19, to understand whether a novel infectious disease outbreak left lasting imprints shaping fertility intentions during a subsequent novel infectious disease outbreak. Findings show that Zika social proximity is associated with fertility intentions through an indirect path related to subjective assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings emerged regardless of whether a woman herself had or suspected she had Zika and speak to the transformative consequences of novel infectious disease outbreaks that go beyond mortality and health