Fertility and Family Planning in the United States

Uncertainty in fertility intentions in Britain, 1979-2007

“…In the US, questions on ideal family size have been asked in Gallup and other commercial surveys since the 1930s, and in demographic surveys since the first Growth of American Families (GAF-I) study (Blake 1966). Birth expectations in the early American fertility surveys, particularly GAF-I and GAF-II, were seen originally as an aid to formulating assumptions about the future fertility of younger women for population projection (Freedman et al 1959;Whelpton et al 1966;Kiser 1967). In subsequent years, fertility intentions stimulated further demographic interest, particularly in evaluating levels and trends in unwanted fertility worldwide, the interpretation of aggregate fertility trends and the process of reproductive decision-making.…”

Toward a family planning program in psychiatric hospitals.

“…A number of studies have shown that low socioeconomic status and high parity are major factors predisposing parents not to want additional children, 54,55 but that nevertheless low socioeconomic status families are more likely than others to have large families. 50,56 Between 1960 and 1965, the proportion of unwanted births was almost twice as high for families with incomes of less than $3,000 as for those with incomes over $10,000.54 The finding of a higher overall proportion of unwanted children among lower socioeconomic status families is probably related not only to poverty but also to high fertility rates: Nortman (1965) found that in 1962 one-half of all families with a yearly income of less than $3,000 had at least four children, whereas this number of children was found in only one-quarter of families with a yearly income of over $10,000.56 Bumpass and Westoff (1970) Thus it appears that high fertility and high proportion of unwanted children overall and at each parity are increasingly operative as the socioeconomic scale descends.…”

Go Forth and Multiply: Revisiting Religion and Fertility in the United States, 1984-2008

“…Pearce [13] posits that, given the many studies demonstrating that the number of children in a family varies from religion to religion, it is reasonable to assume that there is a connection between religion and fertility. Most research in this tradition emphasizes the discrepant fertility patterns between Catholics and Protestants [14,15]. These studies, along with those focusing on the Jewish population (e.g., [16]), found Catholicism to be more highly correlated with high fertility rates compared to Protestants, Jews, and the non-religious.…”