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Context: Much of what is known about the choice of sterilization as a contraceptive method is based on data from married women or couples. Because of increasing rates of cohabitation, divorce and repartnering, however, the relationship context in which sterilization decisions are made has changed., Methods: The 1995 National Survey of Family Growth includes the complete birth and union histories of 10,277 white, black and Hispanic women. The distribution of union status and marital history at the time of tubal sterilization was estimated for these three racial and ethnic groups among the 799 women who had had a tubal ligation in 1990-1995 before age 40. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to estimate the effects of union status and marital history on the risk of tubal sterilization. The analysis controlled for the woman's age, parity, race and ethnicity education, region, experience of an unwanted birth and calendar period., Results: Among women who obtained a tubal sterilization, most whites (79%) and Hispanics (66%) were married when they had the operation, compared with only 36% of black women. At the time of their sterilization, 46% of black women had never been married. Among all women, regardless of race and ethnicity and net of all controls, the probability of tubal sterilization is about 25% lower for single, never-married women than for cohabiting or married women. Cohabitation does not reduce the likelihood in comparison to marriage, however. Higher rates of tubal sterilization among Hispanic women are accounted for by their higher parity at each age; differences in parity or marriage by race only partially account for the relatively higher rates of tubal sterilization among black women., Conclusions: Because women currently spend greater proportions of their lives outside of marriage or in less-stable cohabiting partnerships than they did in the past, they are increasingly likely to make the decision to seek sterilization on their own. As a result, the gender gap in contraceptive sterilization will likely increase. The possibility of partnership change is an important consideration in choosing sterilization as a contraceptive method.

A factorial experiment examined the effects of the wording and sequence of survey questions on the measurement of attitudes toward abortion. When a first-trimester pregnancy is specified, 55% of respondents agree that a woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion for any reason, compared with 44% when no pregnancy duration is stated. Specifying first-trimester pregnancies has little effect on the proportion of respondents who agree that abortion should be available for maternal health, fetal defects or rape, but it significantly increases the proportion who agree that a woman should be able to obtain an abortion if she is single, has financial constraints or wants no more children. When gestational lengths from one to six months are presented to respondents in ascending order, agreement that a woman should be able to obtain an abortion for any reason is lower for any given length of gestation than when pregnancy durations are presented in descending order. Forty-eight percent of respondents agree that abortion should be legal for any reason when that question is posed after a series of specific reasons; however, 60% do so when it is the first question in the sequence. The difference in agreement with abortion for any reason between Catholics and non-Baptist Protestants, and between Republicans and Democrats, is much smaller when the question is asked first than when it is presented last.

Data from the National Survey of Families and Households indicate that 10 percent of children born between 1960 and 1968 were born outside of marriage and that before age 16, another 19 percent experienced the dissolution of their parents' marriage. When parental death and other causes of family disruption are also considered, 36 percent of the children in that age cohort had been separated from at least one parent before they reached age 16, compared with 22 percent of children born two decades earlier. In all, 27 percent of nonmarital births between 1970 and 1984 were to cohabiting couples; the proportion was 40 percent for Mexican Americans, 29 percent for non-Hispanic whites and 18 percent for blacks. About two-thirds of cohabiting couples who had children during the 1970s eventually married; however, before these children reach age 16, 56 percent of them are likely to experience the disruption of their parents' marriage, in comparison with 31 percent of children born to married parents. Overall, about half of all children born between 1970 and 1984 are likely to spend some time in a mother-only family, and more than half of these children reach age 16 without having had a stepfather.

Are we due for a new baby boom as couples who had postponed childbearing begin to make up for lost time? Analysis of National Fertility Study data suggest that "later means fewer"--quite apart from the declining fecundity that occurs at older ages. Couples who delay having children until relatively late in life are subject to fewer pressures to have children (or more children) even as the reasons not to begin (or increase) their families become more salient.