English  Français

Disability status and unintended pregnancy: Differential risk of pregnancy or fertility preferences?

Kerry MacQuarrie, The DHS Program (Avenir Health)
Fleuret Julia, University of California, Davis

We know little about the reproductive goals of women with disabilities. While one U.S. study has shown women with disabilities may be vulnerable to unintended pregnancy, replication of this analysis in 8 low and middle-income countries finds the reverse: women with disabilities consistently have lower odds of experiencing unintended pregnancy than women without disabilities. This study uses Demographic and Health Surveys data in these 8 countries to explore intermediary factors that could explain this observed negative association. We explore factors in two areas: (1) differential exposure to the risk of pregnancy and (2) differential fertility preferences. We find women with disabilities are consistently less likely (differences of 5-24 percentage points) to experience any pregnancy in the last 5 years. Differences in recent sex (6 countries) and contraceptive use (3 countries) explain this finding. In 4 countries, women with disabilities prefer more children and in only one they are less likely to want to delay a birth. We conclude that differences in the exposure to risk of pregnancy, foremost as measured by pregnancy experience, and secondarily by recency of sex and contraceptive use, are likelier explanations of lower odds of unintended pregnancy among women with disability than differences in fertility preferences.

Keywords: Fertility and childbirth, Family planning and contraception, Inequality, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P3.