Contraceptive Consistency and Poverty After Birth

Unplanned pregnancies in the U.S. disproportionately occur among poor, less educated, and minority women, but it is unclear whether poverty following a birth is itself an outcome of this pregnancy planning status. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (n = 2101) and National Survey of Family Growth (n = 778), we constructed 2-year sequences of contraceptive use before a birth that signal an unplanned versus a planned birth. We regressed poverty in the year of the birth both on this contraceptive-sequence variable and on sociodemographic indicators including previous employment and poverty status in the year before the birth, race/ethnicity, education, partnership status, birth order, and family background. Compared to sequences indicating a planned birth, sequences of inconsistent use and non-use of contraception were associated with a higher likelihood of poverty following a birth, both before and after controlling for sociodemographic variables, and before and after additionally controlling for poverty status before the birth. In pooled-survey estimates with all controls included, having not used contraception consistently is associated with a 42% higher odds of poverty after birth. The positive association of poverty after birth with contraceptive inconsistency or non-use, however, is limited to women with low to medium educational attainment. These findings encourage further exploration into relationships between contraceptive access and behavior and subsequent adverse outcomes for the mother and her children.