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Are Hispanic Women Happier About Unintended Births?

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Abstract

Reducing unintended pregnancies—particularly among Hispanic and Black women, who have relatively high rates—is a key public health goal in the United States. However, descriptive literature has suggested that Hispanic women are happier about these pregnancies compared with White and Black women, which could mean that there is variation across groups in the consequences of the resulting births. The purpose of this study was to examine variations in happiness about unintended births by race–ethnicity and to assess possible explanations for these differences. Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth (N = 1,462 births) I find that Hispanic women report being happier about unintended births compared with White and Black women. Higher happiness among Hispanics was particularly pronounced among a subgroup of women: those who were foreign-born and very religious. Overall, results confirm previous findings that intention status alone is incomplete for capturing pregnancy experiences. Happiness offers complementary information that is important when making comparisons by race–ethnicity and nativity.

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Notes

  1. In Spanish, this question is translated as, “Por favor mire la escala en la Tarjeta 39. En esta escala, el uno significa que usted estaba muy descontenta de estar embarazada y el diez significa que estaba muy contenta de estar embarazada. Dígame qué número en la tarjeta describe mejor cómo se sintió cuando se enteró que estaba embarazada.

  2. In prior research, Medicaid (rather than insurance) has often been used as an indicator of socioeconomic status but foreign-born Hispanic women who are undocumented do not have access to Medicaid. As a result, non-Medicaid health insurance is used as an indicator of advantage. Estimating the model with a dummy variable for Medicaid rather than (non-Medicaid) insurance does not change the results.

  3. Sensitivity analyses in which the models were estimated using ordered logistic regressions did not change the substantive results. In these tests, several specifications of the dependent variable were tested, including the full 10-point scale and a simplified 5-point scale (combining 1 and 2, 3, and 4, etc.).

  4. Models estimated separately by religious denomination revealed a pattern of results consistent with those presented in Table 3. The difference in pregnancy happiness between Whites and foreign-born Hispanic women was larger among the very religious compared with those who are less religious, and this held when examining Catholics and non-Catholics separately.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by an NSF Graduate Fellowship as well as an NIA training grant to the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan (T32 AG000221).

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  1. Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 426 Thompson Street, Room 2030, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, USA

    Caroline Sten Hartnett

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Hartnett, C.S. Are Hispanic Women Happier About Unintended Births?. Popul Res Policy Rev 31, 683–701 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-012-9252-7

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