Unintended Pregnancy Among White, Black and Hispanic Immigrants Following Arrival to the US

• In Event: Sociology of Population Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5. Migration and Migrants

Abstract

Using pooled waves from the National Survey of Family Growth (2006-2010, 2011-2013, 2013-2015 and 2015-2017), we assemble retrospective reports from immigrant women who experienced pregnancies before and after arriving in the US. We use person fixed-effects models to estimate changes in the probability that pregnancies were unintended, produced by female-male intention disagreement, preceded by contraceptive use, or conceived within marriage during the first 2 years, 3-5 years, and 6 or more years after immigration relative to pre-migration pregnancies. Our findings suggest that net of unobserved immigrant selectivity, pregnancies conceived after immigration are more likely to be unintended, and that this probability increases as time living in the US grows longer. These findings are partially explained by a higher risk of reproductive coercion for Hispanic immigrants during the first five years after migration, and an increasing probability of nonmarital pregnancy for White immigrants as they spend more time in the US.

Authors

• Mónica L. Caudillo, University of Maryland-College Park

• Yiran Zhang, University of Maryland-College Park

• Yiching Huang, University of Maryland-College Park