Abstract
Pregnancy termination and its interplay with critical life stages and events has rarely been subjected to careful scrutiny in the social sciences, mainly due to a lack of high-quality survey data. Using the first eleven waves (2008–2018) of the German Family Panel Study (pairfam) and employing linear probability models, we examine women and also men with partners who either had induced abortion (N=260 women; N=170 men) or became parents (N=1478 women; N=1220 men). We frame abortion as a social process in which life circumstances and disruptive life events fundamentally shape the decision to carry a pregnancy to term or to discontinue it. We find that teenage or late pregnancy, educational enrollment, previous children, partnership dissolution, and economic uncertainty are associated with induced abortion. Our evidence suggests that abortion decisions are powerfully shaped by life-course contingencies and their complex intertwining.
Zusammenfassung
Bislang gibt es nur wenige sozialwissenschaftliche Studien, die den Einfluss biografisch einschneidender Lebensereignissen auf Schwangerschaftsabbrüche untersuchen. Dies lässt sich vor allem auf einen Mangel an qualitativ hochwertiger Surveydaten zurückführen. Basierend auf den ersten elf Wellen des Beziehungs- und Familienpanels (pairfam) untersuchen wir sowohl Frauen (N=260), die ihre Schwangerschaft abgebrochen haben, als auch Männer (N=170), deren Partnerin einen Abbruch hat durchführen lassen. Als Vergleichsgruppe dienen Frauen und Männer, die kürzlich Eltern geworden sind (Mütter N=1478, Väter N=1220). Theoretisch modellieren wir Schwangerschaftsabbrüche als sozialen Prozess, der entscheidend von individuellen Lebensverläufen und kritischen Lebensereignissen geprägt ist. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass insbesondere Schwangerschaften im Teenageralter sowie Schwangerschaften ab 35 Jahren die Wahrscheinlichkeit eines Schwangerschaftsabbruchs erhöhen. Weiterhin zeigt sich, dass Personen, die sich in schulischer oder beruflicher Ausbildung befinden, bereits Kinder haben, wirtschaftliche und finanzielle Unsicherheit berichten oder kürzlich eine Partnerschaft beendeten, ebenfalls häufiger einen Schwangerschaftsabbruch vornehmen lassen. Unsere Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die Entscheidung für einen Schwangerschaftsabbruch erheblich von individuellen Lebensumständen und deren komplexen Verflechtungen geprägt ist.
About the authors
Lara Minkus is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bremen in Germany. She received her PhD in Sociology from the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS). She holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Mannheim and an M.A. in Sociological and Economic Studies from the University of Hamburg. Her work on topics such as public opinion dynamics, social inequality, sociology of work, and gender has been published in journals such Perspectives on Politics, Social Politics, and EPJ Data Science.
Sonja Drobnič is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bremen. She received her diploma in Sociology from the University of Ljubljana, MA from Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, University of Syracuse, and PhD from Cornell University. She held professorships at the University of Erfurt, University of Hamburg and University of Bremen. Her research interests include family, household and gender, family policy, social stratification and inequality, quality of work, life course research, and longitudinal research methods.
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Acknowledgments
This paper uses data from the German Family Panel, pairfam, co-ordinated by Josef Brüderl, Sonja Drobnič, Karsten Hank, Franz Neyer, and Sabine Walper. pairfam is funded as long-term project by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Additionally, we thank Timo Peter and Nicolai Groepler for invaluable advice as well as Jette Steinkopf and Romina Wiechern for their research assistance.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
