Planning status of marital births, 1975-1976

Fertility rates in the United States continued to decline between the early and mid-1970s as they had during the previous decade. This change was part of a larger trend which was associated with widespread adoption of effective contraception and with the diminishing of many long-standing social and economic differentials in fertility. 1 This article focuses on the fertility of married women in the 1975-1976 period, as measured by Cycle II of the National Survey of Family Growth (the 1976 period, NSFG) conducted by the national Center for Health Statistics of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Data from this survey indicate a continued increase in the proportion of marital births that were reported as planned. Despite a rapid decline in fertility and improvement in birth planning, there were still distinct differences in the mid-1970s in fertility and in the control of recent fertility.