title: Marital status and female and male contraceptive sterilization in the United States.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine female and male sterilization patterns in the United States based on marital status, and to determine if sociodemographic characteristics explain these patterns.
  
  
  METHODS
  Survival analysis of cross-sectional data from the female and male samples from the 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth.
  
  
  METHODS
  Not applicable.
  
  
  METHODS
  The survey is designed to be representative of the US civilian noninstitutionalized population, ages 15-44 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  None.
  
  
  METHODS
  Vasectomy and tubal sterilization.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the United States, vasectomy is the near-exclusive domain of married men. Never-married and ever-married single men, and never-married cohabiting men, had a low relative risk (RR) of vasectomy (RR = 0.1, 0.3, and 0.0, respectively), compared with men in first marriages. Tubal sterilization was not limited to currently married, or even to ever-married women, although it was less common among never-married single women (RR = 0.2) and more common among women in higher-order marriages (RR = 1.8), compared with women in first marriages. In contrast to vasectomy, differential use of tubal sterilization by marital status was driven in large part by differences in parity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study shows that being unmarried at the time of sterilization--an important risk factor for poststerilization regret--was much more common among women than men. In addition to contributing to the predominance of female, vs. male, sterilization, this pattern highlights the importance of educating women on the permanency of sterilization, and the opportunity to increase reliance on long-acting reversible contraceptive methods.
authors.affiliation: California Center for Population Research, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. Electronic address: MEeckhaut@ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Mieke Carine Wim
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Eeckhaut
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003268:Contraception Behavior / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017533:Marital Status / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013246:Sterilization, Tubal / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014659:Vasectomy / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: National Survey of Family Growth; Tubal sterilization; contraception; marital status; vasectomy