Socio-Economic Inequality in the Consequences of Unintended Pregnancy Status for Child Development in Ireland

Yekaterina Chzhen , Trinity College Dublin

Although many studies have linked unintended pregnancy status (UPS) to adverse neonatal outcomes, such as preterm birth and low birth weight, there is relatively little research on the longer-term consequences of UPS for child development and well-being. The existing literature highlights poorer cognitive and social outcomes in children whose births were unplanned or unintended, but this association tends to disappear when maternal or family background is accounted for. This paper investigates the consequences of UPS (separately for unwanted and unintended status) for Irish children’s cognitive development and behavioral adjustment between the ages of 9 months and 13 years. To disentangle the relationship between family socio-economic status, UPS and children’s development outcomes, the present study uses nationally representative longitudinal data from the Growing Up in Ireland study for 11,000 children born in 2008, when abortion was illegal. Unwanted (but not mistimed) pregnancy status is associated with lower child cognitive test scores at age 13. This is primarily due to the lingering effects of financial stress when the child was 9 months old. Mistimed or unwanted pregnancy status is associated with worse mental health at age 13, due to both financial stress and maternal stress when the child was 9 months old. These findings suggest that family SES confounds the association between pregnancy intention and child outcomes not so much because lower SES families are less likely to plan their pregnancies but because they are less able to deal with the financial and psychological consequences of an unintended one.

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 Presented in Session P1. Fertility, Family, Life Course