The perplexing links between contraceptive sterilization and (dis)advantage in ten low-fertility countries

Abstract

This study investigated the association between contraceptive sterilization and socio-economic status (measured by educational attainment) in ten countries, using data from the 2006–10 National Survey of Family Growth and the 2004–10 Generations and Gender Surveys. The findings confirm that a long-standing association between socio-economic status and sterilization persists in the contemporary United States: female sterilization is associated with economic disadvantage, whereas male sterilization is associated with economic advantage. The latter association is found to be unique to the United States, but female sterilization is associated with disadvantage in most of the other countries studied. While basic demographic background factors such as early childbearing and parity can explain the observed associations in most of the countries, a strong gendered association between sterilization and socio-economic status remains in the United States and Belgium even after adjusting for these factors.

Keywords:

• contraception
• sterilization
• socio-economic status
• comparative analysis
• United States

Notes

1 Mieke C. W. Eeckhaut and Megan M. Sweeney are at the California Centre for Population Research, University of California, Los Angeles, 4284 Public Affairs Building, PO Box 957236, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. Megan M. Sweeney is also at the Department of Sociology, UCLA.

2 A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the Population Association of America. This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number F32–HD078037 to M. Eeckhaut and by the California Center for Population Research at UCLA, which receives core support (R24–HD041022) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.