UC Irvine

Little is known about men in reproductive health and family planning, as well as how men and women’s early attitudes towards pregnancy might have long lasting effects on early fatherhood. My dissertation uses qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate masculinities prior to conception when young men and women are trying to prevent or avoid pregnancy, during gestation through unintended pregnancy resolution, and after birth through fathers’ involvement with young children.

I first use in-depth interviews with 40 young low-income men and women of color to address how gender shapes contraceptive management and ideologies pertaining to unintended pregnancy decision-making for young people. I then turn to regression analysis to determine how women’s abortion considerations during gestation correlate to fathers’ engagement, accessibility and responsibility after a pregnancy is brought to term.

My qualitative research identifies how men can support women with contraceptive methods in ways that do not restrict women’s agency. This is despite a variety of structural barriers, such as immigration laws and poverty, which tend to disproportionately block their active participation in reproductive matters. I identify a hybrid masculinity in the way that men present seemingly egalitarian behaviors through their support of women partners in contraception, but also further perceptions of women’s individualized risk of bearing the consequences of an unintended pregnancy. Men tend to take a secondary place in managing the risk of unintended pregnancy, but then at the prospect of experiencing an unintended pregnancy, feel that taking responsibility entails their strong decision-making power to either continue or terminate the pregnancy. These tensions within contraceptive management and between contraception and unintended pregnancy highlight the ways that both men and women struggle to negotiate men’s place in the feminized domain of reproduction.

My quantitative work reveals that both men and women’s abortion considerations affect paternal involvement at different points in time. Parents’ relationship quality mediates these relationships. This suggests that women are critical to shaping paternity for men, and that men’s abortion considerations influence relationships with women, which in turn influence their paternal behavior. My research has strong implications for policy pertaining to contraception, unintended pregnancy and abortion.