Perceptions of the Future and Pregnancy Avoidance in the U.S

Abstract

Despite low U.S. fertility rates since the Great Recession, two-child norms remain pervasive, suggesting individuals are unable to achieve their goals. To understand what may be driving the apparent mismatch between goals and behavior, we focus on pregnancy avoidance, as individuals may be deciding against births in the short term rather than deciding not to have any, or any more, children. Further, we incorporate subjective evaluations of the future related to economic and relational factors as well as objective socioeconomic indicators, drawing from the Narratives of the Future framework and Easterlin's theory about expected standard of living. We use data from the 2018-2020 wave of the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N = 880), a population-based dataset, to examine short-term pregnancy avoidance among adults aged 29-36. We find that higher levels of personal economic pessimism and concerns about having a good relationship in the future are associated with greater importance of avoiding a pregnancy in the short term, even when controlling for objective characteristics such as economic hardship, relationship status, and other sociodemographic covariates. The results highlight the need to incorporate both subjective and objective statuses in research on fertility decision-making, and the implications of these findings point to short-term pregnancy avoidance and fertility postponement as a potential mechanism underlying contemporary low birth rates in the U.S.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11113-025-09962-2.

Keywords: Economic hardship; Fertility intentions; Relationship uncertainty; Subjective perceptions.