Do Reproductive Attitudes and Knowledge Explain Race-Ethnic-Nativity Differences in Unintended Fertility?

One oft-suggested explanation for higher unintended fertility among racialized minorities is that they have less accurate reproductive knowledge and hold different attitudes about having children under various circumstances relative to non-Hispanic Whites. However, testing this explanation is challenging because it is unclear how to identify and measure relevant elements of attitudes and knowledge. In this paper, we make two key contributions to address this challenge. First, we test whether different indicators of reproductive attitudes and knowledge explain race-ethnic-nativity differences in unintended fertility, using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We compare models using individual items and models using latent factors derived in prior research. Although both individual items and factors measuring attitudes and knowledge vary by race-ethnicity-nativity, few indicators significantly predict unintended fertility in the expected direction, and race-ethnic-nativity differences remain statistically significant after controlling for these indicators. Second, we assess whether the previously-developed factor structure fits equally well across different race-ethnic-nativity groups, Using factor analytic techniques, we show that reproductive attitudinal and knowledge factors do not hold equally well across race-ethnicity-nativity, suggesting that attitudinal and knowledge measures may tap into different underlying concepts across sub-populations and thus have limited utility for explaining group differences.