National Fertility Survey, 1965

The 1965 National Fertility Survey was the first of threesurveys that succeeded the Growth of American Families surveys (1955and 1960) aimed at examining marital fertility and family planning inthe United States. Currently married women were queried on thefollowing main topics: residence history, marital history, education,income and employment, family background, religiosity, attitudestoward contraception and sterilization, birth control pill use andother methods of contraception, fecundity, family size, fertilityexpectations and intentions, abortion, and world population growth.Respondents were asked about their residence history, including whatstate they grew up in, whether they had lived with both of theirparents at the age of 14, and whether they had spent any time livingon a farm. Respondents were also asked a series of questions abouttheir marital history. Specifically, they were asked about theduration of their current marriage, whether their current marriage wastheir first marriage, total number of times they had been married, howprevious marriages ended, length of engagement, and whether theirhusband had children from a previous marriage. Respondents were askedwhat was the highest grade of school that they had completed, whetherthey had attended a co-ed college, and to give the same informationabout their husbands. Respondents were asked about their 1965 income,both individual and combined, their occupation, whether they had beenemployed since marriage, if and when they stopped working, and whetherthey were self-employed. They were also asked about their husband'srecent employment status. With respect to family background,respondents were asked about their parents' and their husband'sparents' nationalities, education, religious preferences, and totalnumber children born alive to their mother and mother-in-law,respectively. In addition, respondents were asked about their, andtheir husband's, religious practices including their religiouspreferences, whether they had ever received any Catholic education,how religious-minded they perceived themselves to be, how often theyprayed at home, and how often they went to see a minister, rabbi, orpriest. Respondents were asked to give their opinions with respect tocontraception and sterilization. They were asked whether theyapproved or disapproved of contraception in general, as well asspecific forms of contraception, whether information about birthcontrol should be available to married and unmarried couples, andwhether the federal government should support birth control programsin the United States and in other countries. They were also askedwhether they approved or disapproved of sterilization operations formen and women and whether they thought such a surgery would impair aman's sexual ability. Respondents were asked about their ownknowledge and use of birth control pills. They were asked if they hadever used birth control pills and when they first began usingthem. They were then asked to give a detailed account of their use ofbirth control pills between 1960 and 1965. Respondents were also askedto explain when they discontinued use of birth control pills and whatthe motivation was for doing so. Respondents were also asked abouttheir reproductive cycle, the most fertile days in their cycle, theregularity of their cycle, and whether there were any known reasonswhy they could not have or would have problems having children.Respondents were asked about their ideal number of children, whetherthey had their ideal number of children or if they really wanted fewerchildren, as well as whether their husbands wanted more or lesschildren than they did. Respondents were then asked how manyadditional births they expected, how many total births they expected,when they expected their next child, and at what age they expected tohave their last child. Respondents were asked how they felt aboutinterrupting a pregnancy and whether they approved of abortion givendifferent circumstances such as if the pregnancy endangered thewoman's health, if the woman was not married, if the couple could notafford another child, if the couple did not want another child, if thewoman thought the child would be deformed, or if the woman had beenraped. Respondents were also asked to share their opinions withrespect to world population growth. They were asked whether certaincountries' populations were growing faster or slower than the UnitedStates, if they considered overall world population growth to be aserious problem, and how serious the problem of population growth,both in the United States and worldwide, was relative to otherproblems such as poverty and crime. The survey also included athorough review of all of the respondents' pregnancies and theiroutcomes.