Engendering Definitions of Inequality with Descriptions of Reproductive Difference: Family Formation Experience Differences among Men and between Women and Men

Averil Clarke, Suffolk University

This paper describes reproductive inequalities, including gender differences in family formation experience and race and education level differences in these experiences among men. Using male and female respondent files of the National Survey of Family Growth (NCHS 2006-2010), it describes privilege and disadvantage in romantic relationship formation and unwanted pregnancy. Measurement of levels of reproductive inequality augments scholarly use of social group differences in economic or productive sector outcomes to support inequality claims. Furthermore, adding men and differences among men to the list of social hierarchies in which reproductive differences are typically described (i.e., race and class differences among women) facilitates description of multiple social hierarchies in the same reproductive terms and creates additional options for studying intersecting inequalities. Preliminary analyses show race and education level differences in marital experience and unwanted pregnancies are higher among women and between women and men than they are among men.