Family relation and social competence of children unwanted at birth. A follow-up study at the age of 16.

The children of mothers who said during the pregnancy that the child was not wanted were followed up to age of 16. The material is based on a 14 year follow-up of 96.5% of all the births in Northern Finland in 1966. Controls from the 1966 data are assigned to the unwanted children who are matched with them in sex, age and parity. The number of children and marital and social status of the mother were matched, also taking into account the change in these variables between 1966 and 1980. The differences between the unwanted and control children were not dramatic, but there was a consistent difference between the unwanted girls and their controls, especially in their relations with their fathers, the unwanted girls perceiving their fathers to have been more hostile, more inconsistent in educational practice and less positive. The unwanted girls were rated lower by their teachers in personal behaviour and their relationships with schoolmates. They were more often reluctant to go to school, wanting to leave at the earliest possible age. No such differences were noted between the unwanted and control boys.