Friday, 29 March, 2024
HomeWeekly RoundupStatsSA report shows high percentage of unwanted pregnancies in older women

StatsSA report shows high percentage of unwanted pregnancies in older women

A higher percentage of older women in South Africa had babies when they hadn't planned to. News24 reports that this is according to the 2016 Unwanted Fertility Report released by Statistics SA. The report found that 54% of women born between 1965 and 1969 became pregnant when they did not plan to have any more children. This was an increase from 13.2% in the 1998 survey.

"Of all the births that women aged 15 to 49 years experienced in the last five years before the 1998 survey, about 17% happened when they were no longer planning to have any more children. Such births increased to approximately 20% in the 2016 survey," Stats SA said. In both surveys, these births increased as the women got older.

The report says the Unwanted Fertility report was based on the 1998 and 2016 South African Demographic and Health Survey and sought to establish the level of unwanted pregnancies in the context of fertility decline in the country.

[link url="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/increase-in-percentage-of-older-women-with-unplanned-babies-stats-sa-20200302"]Full News24 report[/link]

[link url="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-00-02/Report-03-00-022020.pdf"]Statistics SA report[/link]

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