Induced Abortion and Migration to Metropolitan Paris by Sub-Saharan African Women: The Role of Intendedness of Pregnancy

Abstract

Migration can affect reproductive outcomes due to different socioeconomic and cultural contexts before and after migration, to changes in the affective and conjugal status of women and to their life conditions. The aim of this study is to investigate the association between international migration and abortion. The data came from a retrospective life-event survey from sub-Saharan African women living in Île-de-France. Differences in abortion distribution before and after migration were assessed using the Pearson chi-square test, and the association between the predictor and the outcome was investigated using Generalized Estimating Equations. A total of 363 women and 1377 pregnancies were investigated. Among these pregnancies, 15.6% that occurred before and 11.0% that occurred after migration was reported as ended in abortion (p = 0.011). The odds of reporting having had an abortion was lower after migration (OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.42-0.84), even after adjustment. However, after including intendedness of pregnancy in the model, this association lost its significance. The difference in induced abortion occurrence between before and after migration is almost entirely due to a change in the intendedness of pregnancy. Thus, socioeconomic and cultural issues have a greater weight in the decision to abort than the legal interdiction of this practice.

Keywords: Induced abortion; Migrants; Migration; Reproductive health.