Social Inequalities in Teenage Fertility Outcomes: Childbearing and Abortion Trends of Three Birth Cohorts In Finland

Abstract

This document is the author's final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Social Inequalities in Teenage Fertility Outcomes: Childbearing and Abortion Trends of Three Birth Cohorts in FinlandHeini Väisänen and Michael Murphy London School of Economics and Political Science CONTEXT: Teenagers of low socioeconomic status are more likely to get pregnant, and less likely to choose abortion, than more privileged teenagers. Few studies have used longitudinal data to examine whether these differences persist as overall teenage pregnancy rates decline.METHODS: Nationally representative register data from 259,242 Finnish women in three birth cohorts (1955-1959,1965-1969 and 1975-1979) were analyzed using Cox regression to assess socioeconomic differences in teenagers' risks of pregnancy and abortion. Binary logistic regression was used to assess socioeconomic differences in the odds of pregnant teenagers' choosing abortion.RESULTS: Socioeconomic differences in abortion risk did not change substantially across cohorts; however, differences in the risk of childbirth rose between the fi rst two cohorts and then returned to their earlier level. In all cohorts, teenagers from upper-level employee backgrounds, the most privileged group, had the lowest risks of abortion and childbirth (44-53% and 53-69% lower, respectively, than those for manual workers' children). Teenagers whose parents were lower-level employees or farmers also had reduced risks of both outcomes in all cohorts; results for other socioeconomic groups were less consistent. Pregnant teenagers from upper-level employee backgrounds had 2-3 times the odds of abortion of manual workers' children; the largest difference was found in the 1950s cohort.CONCLUSIONS: Despite the declining overall teenage pregnancy rate, poorer background continues to be associated with a higher risk of conceiving and of giving birth.

Educational Inequalities in Repeat Abortion: A Longitudinal Register Study in Finland 1975–2010

“…Weights were used to control for this design in the statistical analysis. The unweighted sample included almost half of the Finnish women in these cohorts; the amount of missing information was minimal (see Väisänen (2015) and Väisänen and Murphy (2014) for more information regarding the dataset).…”

The timing of abortions, births, and union dissolutions in Finland

“…Abortions may be used to postpone, space, stop, or avoid childbearing (Bankole, Singh, and Haas 1998). The costs of childbearing for young women may be great if they have not yet completed their education, formed stable partnerships, or had time to accumulate economic resources (Becker 1991;Hansen et al 2009;Kreyenfeld 2010;Oppenheimer 1994;Väisänen and Murphy 2014). Some women are concerned that a new child will deprive existing children of parental and economic resources (Finer et al 2005;Kirkman et al 2009).…”

“…As information on cohabitation has only been included in the Finnish population registers since 1987, these women were young enough to have (almost) all of their cohabitations recorded and old enough in 2010, when data collection ended, to have experienced a sufficient number of abortions, births, and union dissolutions to enable the analyses. I extracted this data from a dataset collected for a larger study project (Väisänen 2015;Väisänen and Murphy 2014). The subsample I used in this study forms a simple random sample of 19,166 women born in these years.…”

Trajectories to abortion and abortion-related care: a conceptual framework

“…A multi-site study in Vietnam interviewed women (n=1224) about repeat (≥ 2) abortions (Ngo et al, 2014). 1955-59, 1965-69, 1975-79) indicated that despite a decline in the overall teenage (≤ 19 years) pregnancy rate, teenagers who came from wealthier backgrounds had 2-3 times the odds of abortion (Väisänen and Murphy, 2014).…”