Parenthood intentions of 16–18-year-olds in England: a survey of school students

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographics of participating schools.

Demographic categories	Number of schools (n = 20)	%
Gender
Mixed	17	85.0
Girls	3	15.0
Boys	0	0.0
Funding
Private	6	30.0
State-funded	14	70.0
Religion
None	17	85.0
Church of England	2	10.0
Other Christian	1	5.0
Location
Bristol	1	5.0
Cambridgeshire	2	10.0
Essex	2	10.0
Hertfordshire	2	10.0
Kent	1	5.0
London	4	20.0
Newcastle	1	5.0
Norfolk	1	5.0
North Yorkshire	1	5.0
Oxfordshire	1	5.0
Southampton	1	5.0
Wiltshire	1	5.0
Worcestershire	2	10.0

Table 2. Survey questions related to students’ attitudes towards sex, fertility and reproductive health, their future parenthood intentions and their demographics.

	Questions	Qualitative/Quantitative
Demographic questions	Please state the name of your school as advised by your teacher.	Quantitative
	Which gender do you identify as?	Quantitative
	What is your sexual orientation?	Quantitative
	What is your religion or belief?	Quantitative
	How do you identify yourself in terms of your ethnicity?	Quantitative
	What is your disability status?	Quantitative
Attitudes towards having children questions	Do you want children in the future?	Quantitative
	Why might you not want children in the future?	Qualitative
	If you were to have children in the future, how do you want to have them?	Quantitative
	If you want children, at what age do you think you will want to have your children? This can be either naturally, adoption or through fertility treatments.	Quantitative
	If you want children, how many do you think you will want? This can be either naturally, adoption or through fertility treatments.	Quantitative
	In the future, if you were to have children, how do you think you might have them?	Quantitative
	Do you have any concerns about the possibility of having one or more children in the future?	Quantitative
	What are you concerns about the possibility of having children in the future?	Qualitative
	Before having children, are their certain things you want to achieve?	Quantitative

Table 3. Demographic details of participating students, according to gender.

Demographic Categories	Number of students	%	Number of Male	%	Number of Female	%	Number of Other	%
	931		250		636		31
Gender
Male	250	26.9%
Female	636	68.3%
Transmale	5	0.5%
Transfemale	0	0.0%
Non-binary	16	1.7%
Other	10	1.1%
Prefer not to say	14	1.5%
Sexual orientation
Heterosexual	659	70.8%	220	88.0%	434	68.2%	1	3.2%
Homosexual	37	4.0%	6	2.4%	20	3.1%	8	25.8%
Bisexual	124	13.3%	12	4.8%	106	16.7%	4	12.9%
Pansexual	22	2.4%	2	0.8%	13	2.0%	7	22.6%
Prefer not to say	50	5.4%	5	2.0%	41	6.4%	1	3.2%
Other	39	4.2%	5	2.0%	22	3.5%	10	32.3%
Religion or belief
No religion or belief	435	46.7%	119	47.6%	296	46.5%	15	48.4%
Buddhist	14	1.5%	5	2.0%	7	1.1%	1	3.2%
Christian (including Church of England, Catholic, Protestant and all other Christian denominations)	234	25.1%	62	24.8%	165	25.9%	5	16.1%
Hindu	34	3.7%	18	7.2%	16	2.5%	0	0.0%
Jewish	9	1.0%	0	0.0%	7	1.1%	2	6.5%
Muslim	78	8.4%	25	10.0%	52	8.2%	1	3.2%
Sikh	5	0.5%	3	1.2%	2	0.3%	0	0.0%
Spiritual but no particular religion	76	8.2%	6	2.4%	63	9.9%	4	12.9%
Any other religion or belief	25	2.7%	6	2.4%	15	2.4%	3	9.7%
Prefer not to say	21	2.3%	6	2.4%	13	2.0%	0	0.0%
Ethnicity
Arab	11	1.2%	4	1.6%	6	0.9%	1	3.2%
Asian/Asian British - Bangladeshi	13	1.4%	6	2.4%	7	1.1%	0	0.0%
Asian/Asian British - Chinese	32	3.4%	5	2.0%	24	3.8%	3	9.7%
Asian/Asian British - Indian	52	5.6%	21	8.4%	32	5.0%	0	0.0%
Asian/Asian British - Pakistani	17	1.8%	5	2.0%	12	1.9%	0	0.0%
Any other Asian background	38	4.1%	14	5.6%	21	3.3%	2	6.5%
Black/Black British - African	38	4.1%	7	2.8%	31	4.9%	1	3.2%
Black/Black British - Caribbean	15	1.6%	7	2.8%	5	0.8%	3	9.7%
Any other Black/African/Caribbean background	8	0.9%	3	1.2%	6	0.9%	0	0.0%
White English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British	570	61.2%	146	58.4%	402	63.2%	18	58.1%
White Irish	13	1.4%	5	2.0%	7	1.1%	1	3.2%
White Gypsy or Irish Traveller	3	0.3%	2	0.8%	1	0.2%	0	0.0%
Any other white background	88	9.5%	19	7.6%	66	10.4%	2	6.5%
Mixed-ethnic background - please specify	55	5.9%	16	6.4%	33	5.2%	3	9.7%
Any other ethnicity	13	1.4%	2	0.8%	10	1.6%	0	0.0%
Prefer not to say	10	1.1%	3	1.2%	6	0.9%	0	0.0%
Year group at school
Year 12	806	86.6%	228	91.2%	539	84.7%	26	83.9%
Year 13	125	13.4%	22	8.8%	97	15.3%	5	16.1%
A Level subjects
Biology	259	27.8%	50	20.0%	197	31.0%	6	19.4%
Chemistry	229	24.6%	58	23.2%	165	25.9%	4	12.9%
Physics	133	14.3%	73	29.2%	56	8.8%	4	12.9%
Applied science	38	4.1%	8	3.2%	25	3.9%	4	12.9%
None of the above	512	55.0%	128	51.2%	358	56.3%	20	64.5%

Figure 1. Students’ views on whether they wanted to have children.

Table 4. Chi-squared and p-values for all quantitative questions.

Question	Chi-square	p-value
Do you want children in the future?	3.428	0.0641
If you were to have children in the future, how do you want to have them?	49.698	<0.0001
If you want children, at what age do you think you will want to have your children? This can be either naturally, adoption or through fertility treatments.	12.011	0.0073
If you want children, how many do you think you will want? This can be either naturally, adoption or through fertility treatments.	21.639	0.0002
In the future, if you were to have children, how do you think you might have them?	44.652	<0.0001
Do you have any concerns about the possibility of having one or more children in the future?	28.792	<0.0001
Before having children, are their certain things you want to achieve?	2.966	0.8130

Figure 2. Students’ choices on the routes to parenthood.

Figure 3. Age at which students wanted to have children.

Figure 4. Students’ desired number of children.

Figure 5. Sex of partner with whom students want to have children.

Figure 6. Students’ desired achievements before having children.

Data availability statement

The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author, but we are restricted by UCL research ethics committee regulations.