Association of race, sex, religion, family size, and desired number of children on college students' preferred methods of dealing with unplanned pregnancy.
College students (N = 704) from two southeastern universities--one predominantly white and the other predominantly black--were surveyed by questionnaire to assess their order of preference of five methods for dealing with an out-of-wedlock, unplanned pregnancy: a) marriage, b) abortion, c) adoption, d) raising the child as a single parent, and e) having grandparents raise the child. Although, there has been a liberalization of society's attitudes toward options available to young people facing an unplanned pregnancy, results indicate that the majority of these students would prefer to marry, if possible. Abortion was their second preference. Of the remaining options, raising a child as a single parent was preferable to allowing a third party to raise the child, either through adoption or extended family. Race, sex, religiosity, religious preference, number of siblings, and number of desired children were significantly associated with these students' preferences of the five methods for dealing with unplanned pregnancy.
Ryan
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East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858.
Dunn
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PC
D000022:Abortion, Spontaneous; D000293:Adolescent; D000300:Adoption; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D001294:Attitude to Health; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D011247:Pregnancy / Q000523:psychology*; D012067:Religion; D012737:Sex Factors; D015406:Single Parent; D015144:Southeastern United States; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014495:Universities; D044465:White People