Hartnett Caroline Sten
University of Michigan Institute for Social Research 426 Thompson Street, Room 2030 Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Popul Res Policy Rev. 2012 Oct 1;31(5):683-701. doi: 10.1007/s11113-012-9252-7.
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.
减少意外怀孕——尤其是在西班牙裔和黑人女性中，她们的意外怀孕率相对较高——是美国的一项关键公共卫生目标。然而，描述性文献表明，与白人和黑人女性相比，西班牙裔女性对这些怀孕情况更为满意，这可能意味着不同群体在生育结果方面存在差异。本研究的目的是考察不同种族-族裔群体对意外生育的满意度差异，并评估造成这些差异的可能原因。利用全国家庭成长调查的数据（n = 1462例生育），我发现与白人和黑人女性相比，西班牙裔女性报告称对意外生育更为满意。西班牙裔女性中较高的满意度在一个女性亚群体中尤为明显：那些外国出生且笃信宗教的女性。总体而言，研究结果证实了之前的发现，即仅靠生育意愿状态不足以全面描述怀孕经历。满意度提供了补充信息，在按种族-族裔和出生地进行比较时非常重要。
