Women’s life cycle and abortion decision in unintended pregnancies
Open accessAbstract
Objective: To study the impact of sociodemographic, financial, and reproductive factors and of characteristics related to intimate relationships on the decisions of women in different age groups about whether or not to continue an unintended pregnancy. Design: Cross sectional population based survey. Setting: Telephone interview survey between September 2000 and January 2001 in France. From a representative sample (n=14 704) of 18 to 44 year old women, those who in the past five years had an abortion or whose last pregnancy was unintended were oversampled (sampling fraction=100%, n=1034) while the other women were randomly selected (sampling fraction =19%, n=1829). Altogether, 2863 women answered the questionnaire. Participants: All women whose last pregnancy was unintended and ended in induced abortion or birth (n=645). Main results: Factors associated with the abortion decision varied strongly according to age. Younger women’s abortion decisions were mainly related to being a student and being single. Wanting to stop childbearing when the desired number of children was achieved best explained the decision to have an abortion among 25 to 34 year old women. Older women chose abortion especially when childbearing did not fit their work situation or when the relationship with the partner was unstable. A high level of education of a woman and her partner increased the likelihood of abortion, especially among young women. Conclusions: The impact of socioeconomic and relationship factors on the decision to have an abortion is not the same at different stages in life, and refers to the social representations and perceptions of what good conditions are for being a mother.
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The higher likelihood of seeing benefits among women with high education or studying is probably due to it being more acceptable for them to plan their family and terminate a pregnancy when the time is not right, with priority on establishing careers.
“This likelihood is probably, due to the fact that for women with high educational levels or still studying it is more acceptable to plan their family and terminate a pregnancy when the time is not right to have children, and the priority is to establish their careers [51].”
From Induced abortion: a cross-sectional study on knowledge of and attitudes toward the new abortion law in Maputo and Quelimane cities, Mozambique (2020) · cites this paper as [51]
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Research works printed but not linked: 26
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Frederico, M., Arnaldo, C., Decat, P., Juga, A., Kemigisha, E., Degomme, O., & Michielsen, K. (2020) · BMC Women's Health · doi:10.1186/s12905-020-00988-6 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“This likelihood is probably, due to the fact that for women with high educational levels or still studying it is more acceptable to plan their family and terminate a pregnancy when the time is not right to have children, and the priority is to establish their careers [51].”
Background
- Authors
- Sihvo, S., Bajos, N., Ducot, B., & Kaminski, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- Inserm (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Sihvo, S
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2003-07-25
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 601-605
- ISSN
- 0141-7681 (ISSN-L)
- 0143-005X
- 1470-2738
- PMC
- PMC1732542
- OpenAlex
- W2020936738
- Cited by
- 135
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 4.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Reproductive Health and Contraception
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Reproductive Health and Technologies
- Keywords
- abortion decision-making, unintended pregnancy, women's life cycle, age differences, sociodemographic factors, financial factors, reproductive factors, intimate relationships, relationship stability, educational attainment, single women, social representations of motherhood, France
- MeSH terms
- Abortion, Induced, Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Analysis of Variance, Cross-Sectional Studies, Decision Making, Female, France, Humans, Pregnancy, Pregnancy, Unwanted, Socioeconomic Factors
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