Sex and Social Class

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Abstract
More than 1/3 of all pregnancies in married women are unplanned and 1/2 of these are unwanted, according to an assessment of the use of family planning services in England and Wales prepared for the Department of Health. The report is based on 3500 women and reflects current attitudes. Findings show unplanned and unwanted pregnancies to be more common among wives and daughters of manual workers, and within this group the problem is greatest among those who marry before the age of 20 or who are pregnant at the time of their marriage. These particular women make relatively little use of the family planning services currently available and tend to rely on traditional methods such as the condom, withdrawal, and the safe period. Further reduction in the number of unplanned pregnancies is an urgent need, but the report says that the problem will not be solved simply by increasing the number of clinics, for an important deterrant seems to be lack of privacy. The most difficult problem is education of teen-age girls in the use of contraceptives. Long-term sex education holds out the best prospects for reducing unwanted pregnancies, but it must be good sex education, which emphasizes the importance of personal relationships as well as physical ones.

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