How Do Neighborhood Homicides Affect Young Women’s Pregnancy Desires?

• In Event: 1541 - Population Processes: Cohort dynamics and social change

Abstract

Leveraging spatiotemporal variation in homicides that occurred during a 2.5-year weekly panel survey of 485 women ages 18 to 22 in Flint, Michigan, we investigate how young women’s desires for and to avoid pregnancy—and potential conflict between the two—evolve in response to local homicides during the transition to adulthood. To address the endogeneity of exposure we explore how the same woman’s pregnancy desires (1) change right after a homicide has occurred within a quarter-mile of her home, (2) differ, on average, across weeks before and after her first exposure to homicide, and (3) evolve alongside cumulative exposures over time. Eighteen percent of women were exposed to a nearby homicide at least once, with a third of these women exposed multiple times. Exposure increased young women’s desire for pregnancy, reduced their desire to avoid it, and had no effect on whether those desires were in conflict. Overall the effects of nearby homicides tended to be gradual—average desires for and to avoid pregnancy shifted after women’s first exposure and further shifted with each additional time they were exposed, but initial exposure did not have an observable, immediate effect. Our analyses provide a new explanation for why some young women, especially those who are socially disadvantaged, desire pregnancy at an early age.

Authors

• Abigail Weitzman, University of Texas-Austin

• Jennifer S. Barber, Indiana University-Bloomington

• Justin Heinze, University of Michigan, School of Public Health

• Marc Zimmerman, University of Michigan, School of Public Health