Local Employment Conditions and Unintended Pregnancy
| Author | Jessica Houston Su |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12546 |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
J H S University at Buffalo
Local Employment Conditions and
Unintended Pregnancy
Objective: This study examined the relationship
between local employment conditions and unin-
tended pregnancy.
Background: Economic conditions shape
the decisions that Americans make about their
families, such as whether and when to have
children. Women have fewer children during
economic downturns, but it is unclear how
the economy is related to another dimension
of fertility: unintended pregnancy. This is an
important avenue of research because unin-
tended pregnancy is relatedto population health
and social inequality.
Method: This study analyzed a unique restricted
data set that combined data from a nation-
ally representative sample of women aged 20
to 44 years from the National Survey of Family
Growth (2002, 2006–2010, and 2011–2013),
with employment data from the U.S. Cen-
sus and the American Community Survey
(n=13,702). It employed multinomial logistic
regressions to estimate the odds that respon-
dents had an unintended pregnancyas a function
of local employment conditions in their Core
Based Statistical Area.
Results: Higher unemployment rates were asso-
ciated with lower odds of unintended pregnancy
overall (including both mistimed and unwanted)
relative to no pregnancy, adjusting for observ-
able and unobservable characteristics. Women
Department of Sociology, Universityat Buffalo, SUNY,
455 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 (jhsu2@buffalo.edu).
KeyWords:economic well-being, employment, fertility, preg-
nancy, social class.
were less likely to have unwanted pregnan-
cies in particular. This relationship was evident
among women with both high and low levels
of education, although those with the lowest edu-
cation had the steepest declines.
Conclusion: Local employment conditions are
an important context for fertility and are related
to women’s pregnancy intentions.
Economic conditions shape the decisions that
Americans make about their families, such as
whether and when to have children. Indeed,
periods of economic crisis, such as the Great
Depression in the 1930s and the Great Reces-
sion from 2007 to 2009, are associated with
declining birth rates (Morgan, Cumberworth,
& Wimer, 2011; Rindfuss, Morgan, & Swice-
good, 1988; Sobotka, Skirbekk, & Philipov,
2011). Recent estimates suggest that deterio-
rating economic conditions during the Great
Recession were associated with a 7.5% reduc-
tion in the fertility rate (Schneider, 2015).
Although this body of research provides impor-
tant information about birth rates overall, we
know relatively little about changes in intended
and unintended pregnancy that precede this
fertility shift.
Economic conditions may be related to
important variation in intended and unintended
pregnancy that is overlooked when live births
are the primary unit of analysis. Only 65% of
pregnancies result in live births due to induced
abortion or fetal loss (Ventura, Curtin, Abma, &
Henshaw, 2012), so birth rates only tell part of
the story about fertility patterns. In particular,
unintended pregnancy—pregnancy that was
380 Journal of Marriage and Family 81 (April 2019): 380–396
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12546
Employment Conditions and Unintended Pregnancy 381
considered mistimed or unwanted at the time of
conception— is an important barometer of both
physical and social health in the population.
Indeed, the federal government has invested
in reducing the rate of unintended pregnancy
by 10% as part of the Healthy People 2020
initiative (U.S. Department of Health & Human
Services, 2010).
Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United
States are unintended (Finer & Zolna, 2016).
Unintended pregnancies are even more preva-
lent among disadvantaged groups, such as peo-
ple of color and those with low education (Finer
& Zolna, 2016; Musick, England, Edgington, &
Kangas, 2009), the same populations that are hit
hardest by economic crises such as the Great
Recession (Hoynes, Miller, & Schaller, 2012;
Pfeffer, Danziger, & Schoeni, 2013). A clearer
understanding of the relationship between eco-
nomic conditions and pregnancy intentions will
therefore shed light on fertility patterns that have
important implications for population health and
social inequality.
The current study draws on a unique, nation-
ally representative data set that combines
restricted data from the National Survey of Fam-
ily Growth collected from 2001 to 2013 (NSFG;
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/index.htm) with
contextual data from the U.S. Census (https://
www.census.gov/data.html) and the American
Community Survey (ACS; https://www.census
.gov/programs-surveys/acs/) and addresses the
following three specic research questions: Are
local employment conditions associated with
the odds of unintended pregnancy, intended
pregnancy, and/or no pregnancy? If local
employment conditions are associated with
unintended pregnancy, are they related to mist-
imed or unwanted pregnancies specically?
Does the relationship between employment
conditions and unintended pregnancy vary by
socioeconomic status, proxied by educational
attainment?
B
Existing Research on Employment Conditions
and Fertility
A large body of theoretical and empirical
research suggests that economic conditions play
an important role in fertility patterns (Butz &
Ward, 1979b; Easterlin, 1966). Historically,
rising unemployment rates are linked with
declining birth rates (Rindfuss et al., 1988;
Schaller, 2016). Recent research focusing on
the Great Recession found that changes in
state-level unemployment rates were linked
with changes in fertility rates (Cherlin, Cum-
berworth, Morgan, & Wimer, 2013; Morgan
et al., 2011). In addition, mortgage foreclosure
and economic uncertainty were also linked
with reduced fertility during the Great Reces-
sion (Schneider, 2015). It is less clear how the
economic landscape is related to unintended
pregnancy, however.
Research examining teen birth provides some
indirect hints about the relationship between
employment and unintended birth given that
teen births are disproportionately unintended
(Finer, 2010). Weak economic conditions, such
as high unemployment rates and involuntary
job losses, are linked with lower teen birth
rates (Ananat, Gassman-Pines, & Gibson-Davis,
2013; Kearney & Levine, 2015). These results
imply that poor economic conditions could be
associated with decreased unintended childbear-
ing, at least among teenagers. It is unclear
whether these results are generalizable to a
population of adult women or how they are
related to the pregnancies that do not result
in live birth.
Research on nonmarital birth also provides
some relevant insights, insofar as they are more
likely to be unintended compared to marital
births (Finer & Zolna, 2016). An inuential body
of theoretical and qualitative research posits that
weak employment conditions are linked with
lower marriage rates and, by extension, higher
nonmarital birth rates. Wilson (1987) posited
that widespread male joblessness in areas of
concentrated poverty created a dearth of “mar-
riageable men” and contributed to rising non-
marital birth rates among Black women. Recent
qualitative research similarly posits that strin-
gent criteria for marriage and poor economic
prospects among low-income White women cre-
ated low opportunity costs for nonmarital births
and therefore contribute to increased nonmarital
fertility (Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Gibson-Davis,
Edin, & McLanahan, 2005). This prior research
on nonmarital childbearing is relevant to the cur-
rent study, but it primarily focuses on marriage
and does not fully address the role of unintended
fertility. The assumption that all nonmarital
childbearing is unintended is problematic in
light of the weakening link between marriage
and childbearing (Musick, 2002). For example,
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