Reproductive impairments among currently married couples: United States, 1976

This report presents preliminary estimates of fecundity impairments - that is, involuntary conditions that make it difficult or impossible to have additional children - among currently married couples in the United States in 1976. These are the latest national estimates of fecundity impairments and the first since those reported from the 1960 Growth of American Families Study. The data are based on Cycle II of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) conducted in 1976 by the National Center for Health Statistics. The NSFG is based on personal interviews with a multistage area probability sample of women 15-44 years of age in the household population of the conterminous United States. Women were eligible for inclusion in the sample if they were currently married, previously married, or were never married but had offspring presently living in the household. The interview focused on the respondents' marital and pregnancy histories, theur use of contraception and the planning status of each pregnancy, their use of maternal care and family planning services, fecundity impairments, and a wide range of social and economic characteristics. Between January and September of 1976, 3,009 black women and 5,602 women of other races were interviewed. Because the estimates of statistics in this report are based on a sample, they are subject to sampling variability. Further discussion of the survey design, definition of terms, and sampling variability can be found in the Technical Notes. Statistics in this report refer to women who were currently married at the time of the survey. Characteristics reported, such as age, race, number of years since first marriage, and parity (number of children evern born), all refer to the wife. Fecundity impairments were reported in response to questions on whether respondent couples had trouble having children.