DOES THE WANTEDNESS OF A PREGNANCY PREDICT A CHILDS EDUCATIONAL-ATTAINMENT

An analysis of the educational attainment of more than 10,000 members of the 1966 cohort of births in Northern Finland found that 25% of the young men born following an unwanted pregnancy failed to attain any m ore education than the nine years of compulsory schooling, compared wi th 18% of those born as a result of a mistimed pregnancy and 14% from a wanted one. The comparable proportions for women in the cohort were 19%, 13% and 9%, respectively. A binary regression analysis that contr olled for family background variables indicates that unwantedness incr eased the risk that men would not go on to upper secondary school by 6 .3 percentage points and that women would not by 6.3 percentage points . The statistical interaction between large family size and unwantedne ss showed an increased risk of low educational attainment among the yo ung men; neither large family size nor other family background variabl es could explain the association between unwantedness at birth and com paratively little schooling among the women.