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Author: Gemmill, Alison
Resulting in 6 citations.
1. Gemmill, Alison
Estimating Subfecundity: The NLSY79 Cohort
Presented: Washington DC, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2016
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Contraception; Expectations/Intentions; Fertility; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Estimating subfecundity in longitudinal social surveys allows for improved understanding of the underlying processes that lead to childlessness and low fertility in contemporary societies. However, most of these surveys lack measures needed to directly estimate impaired fertility. This paper provides indirect estimates of subfecundity in a longitudinal cohort of women by using observed pregnancy and partnership histories, as well as reported contraceptive use and expectations for children over the life course. Data are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort, whose members have recently completed childbearing. I use a multi-state model to estimate transition probabilities between states of exposure to the risk subfecundity, identify spells of subfecundity, and duration of time spent in a spell. Future analyses will investigate the sensitivity of the measure to different specifications of risk, as well as the demographic, behavioral, and socioeconomic correlates of experiences of subfecundity in this cohort.
Bibliography Citation
Gemmill, Alison. "Estimating Subfecundity: The NLSY79 Cohort." Presented: Washington DC, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2016.
2. Gemmill, Alison
"I Can't Get Pregnant Anyway": Perceived Subfecundity and Nonuse of Contraception
Presented: Chicago IL, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2017
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Contraception; Fertility; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In the United States, more than half (54%) of unintended pregnancies occur to women who do not use contraception or have long gaps in use. Prior research suggests that one reason women do not use contraception is because they believe themselves to be subfecund. These beliefs, however, may provide a false sense of protection from unintended pregnancy if they are not medically accurate. To the author's knowledge, no nationally representative studies have demonstrated a link between perceived subfecundity and contraceptive use. Using data from the NLSY-1997 cohort, a large, nationally representative survey of young adults containing a specialized module on perceived and experienced subfecundity, I demonstrate that women with low perceived fecundity have higher odds of non-use of contraception. Further, these results persist after controlling for a medical diagnosis of infertility and self-reported conception delay after 6 or 12 months, suggesting that risk perceptions often operate independently of experienced subfecundity.
Bibliography Citation
Gemmill, Alison. ""I Can't Get Pregnant Anyway": Perceived Subfecundity and Nonuse of Contraception." Presented: Chicago IL, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2017.
3. Gemmill, Alison
From Some to None? Fertility Expectation Dynamics of Permanently Childless Women
Demography 56,1 (February 2019): 129-149.
Also: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-018-0739-7
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Expectations/Intentions; Fertility; Life Course

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Permanent childlessness is increasingly acknowledged as an outcome of a dynamic, context-dependent process, but few studies have integrated a life course framework to investigate the complex pathways leading to childlessness. This study focuses on an understudied yet revealing dimension of why individuals remain childless: stated fertility expectations over the life course. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort, I use a combination of sequence analysis, data-driven clustering techniques, and multivariable regression models to identify and describe groups of permanently childless women who follow similar trajectories of stated fertility expectations. Results indicate that a little more than one-half (56 %) of eventually childless women fall into a cluster where childlessness is expected before age 30. Women in the remaining clusters (44 %) transition to expecting childlessness later in the life course but are differentiated by the types of trajectories that precede the emergence of a childless expectation. Results from multivariable regression show that several respondent characteristics, including race/ethnicity, education, and marital history, predict cluster membership. Taken together, these findings add to a growing body of literature that provides a more nuanced description of permanently childless women and motivates further research that integrates interdependencies between life course domains and fertility expectations and decision-making of those who remain childless. Permanent childlessness is increasingly acknowledged as an outcome of a dynamic, context-dependent process, but few studies have integrated a life course framework to investigate the complex pathways leading to childlessness. This study focuses on an understudied yet revealing dimension of why individuals remain childless: stated fertility expectations over the life course. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort, I use a combination of sequence analysis, data-driven clustering techniques, and multivariable regression models to identify and describe groups of permanently childless women who follow similar trajectories of stated fertility expectations. Results indicate that a little more than one-half (56 %) of eventually childless women fall into a cluster where childlessness is expected before age 30. Women in the remaining clusters (44 %) transition to expecting childlessness later in the life course but are differentiated by the types of trajectories that precede the emergence of a childless expectation. Results from multivariable regression show that several respondent characteristics, including race/ethnicity, education, and marital history, predict cluster membership. Taken together, these findings add to a growing body of literature that provides a more nuanced description of permanently childless women and motivates further research that integrates interdependencies between life course domains and fertility expectations and decision-making of those who remain childless.
Bibliography Citation
Gemmill, Alison. "From Some to None? Fertility Expectation Dynamics of Permanently Childless Women." Demography 56,1 (February 2019): 129-149.
4. Gemmill, Alison
Perceived Subfecundity and Contraceptive Use Among Young Adult U.S. Women
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 50,3 (September 2018): 119-127.
Also: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1363/psrh.12072
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Alan Guttmacher Institute
Keyword(s): Contraception; Expectations/Intentions; Fertility; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

CONTEXT: Women who view themselves as having difficulty becoming pregnant (i.e., being subfecund) may feel that they do not need to use contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancy. However, subfecundity perceptions are not always medically accurate and may therefore confer a false sense of protection. The extent to which perceived fecundity is related to contraceptive use is not well understood.

METHODS: Multinomial logistic regression was used to investigate the relationship between perceived fecundity at age 25–30 and contraceptive use among 2,091 women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort.

RESULTS: Compared with women who considered themselves very likely to become pregnant, those who thought that they were only somewhat likely and those who viewed themselves as not very likely to do so had significantly higher risks of not using contraceptives within the next year (risk ratios, 1.9 and 2.4, respectively). Results were similar in analyses controlling for either a medical diagnosis of infertility, a history of multiple miscarriages or stillbirths, or absence of pregnancy following at least six months of unprotected sex, suggesting that perceived subfecundity operates independently of experienced subfecundity.

CONCLUSION: Because few studies have investigated fecundity perceptions in their own right, more research is needed to understand how women evaluate their fecundity and to integrate these perceptions into broader frameworks describing women's perception of pregnancy risk. Such work may help identify potential levers to improve contraceptive use.

Bibliography Citation
Gemmill, Alison. "Perceived Subfecundity and Contraceptive Use Among Young Adult U.S. Women." Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 50,3 (September 2018): 119-127.
5. Gemmill, Alison
Chudnovskaya, Margarita
Hepburn, Peter
Women's Household Income Contributions and Higher-order Births in the United States
Presented: Budapest, Hungary, European Population Conference, June 2014
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: European Association for Population Studies (EAPS)
Keyword(s): Births, Repeat / Spacing; Family Income; Fertility; Maternal Employment; Mothers, Income; Wives, Income

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Women's labor force participation has risen dramatically in the United States over the last fifty years. As more women continue working after marriage and childbirth, they contribute a rising share to household income, which likely influences decisions regarding timing and likelihood of second and third births within marriage. This paper uses data from the NLSY1979 to capture longitudinal variation in women's and men's income contribution to the household, and relates these income differences to fertility progression. We study the effect of women's household income contributions in relative (to their partner's income) and absolute (income measured yearly) terms. Event history analysis shows that female-breadwinner families behave similarly to dual-income earner families with regard to second and third births, and that both of these groups have lower fertility than male-breadwinner households when other family characteristics are adjusted for.
Bibliography Citation
Gemmill, Alison, Margarita Chudnovskaya and Peter Hepburn. "Women's Household Income Contributions and Higher-order Births in the United States." Presented: Budapest, Hungary, European Population Conference, June 2014.
6. Gemmill, Alison
Sedlander, Erica
Bornstein, Marta
Variation in Self-Perceived Fecundity among Young Adult U.S. Women
Women's Health Issues published online (21 August 2020): DOI: 10.1016/j.whi.2020.07.002.
Also: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049386720300670
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Ethnic Differences; Expectations/Intentions; Fertility; Racial Differences

Methods: This cross-sectional study examines perceptions of one's own fecundity among U.S. women aged 24 to 32 who participated in the 2009-2011 rounds of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997) cohort. Analyses were limited to 3,088 women who indicated that they or their partners never received a doctor's diagnosis regarding fertility difficulties.

Results: Of the women in the sample, 67% perceived their hypothetical chances of becoming pregnant as very likely; the remainder perceived their chances as somewhat likely (13%), not as likely (15%), or provided a "don't know" response (6%). Twenty-six percent of Black women and 19% of Latina women perceived themselves as not very likely to become pregnant, compared with only 12% among non-Black/non-Latina women (p < .001). Only 6% of women with a college degree perceived their chances of becoming pregnant as not very likely, compared with 36% among women without a high school degree (p < .001). Racial/ethnic and educational differences persisted in fully adjusted models. Other factors associated with fecundity self-perceptions include partnership status, parity, fertility expectations, sexual activity, prolonged exposure to unprotected intercourse for at least 6 and/or 12 months without becoming pregnant, and self-rated health.

Bibliography Citation
Gemmill, Alison, Erica Sedlander and Marta Bornstein. "Variation in Self-Perceived Fecundity among Young Adult U.S. Women." Women's Health Issues published online (21 August 2020): DOI: 10.1016/j.whi.2020.07.002.