DOI: 10.3886/icpsr20002
title: National Fertility Survey, 1965
title: Archival Version

description: The 1965 National Fertility Survey was the first of three
surveys that succeeded the Growth of American Families surveys (1955
and 1960) aimed at examining marital fertility and family planning in
the United States. Currently married women were queried on the
following main topics: residence history, marital history, education,
income and employment, family background, religiosity, attitudes
toward contraception and sterilization, birth control pill use and
other methods of contraception, fecundity, family size, fertility
expectations and intentions, abortion, and world population growth.
Respondents were asked about their residence history, including what
state they grew up in, whether they had lived with both of their
parents at the age of 14, and whether they had spent any time living
on a farm. Respondents were also asked a series of questions about
their marital history. Specifically, they were asked about the
duration of their current marriage, whether their current marriage was
their first marriage, total number of times they had been married, how
previous marriages ended, length of engagement, and whether their
husband had children from a previous marriage. Respondents were asked
what was the highest grade of school that they had completed, whether
they had attended a co-ed college, and to give the same information
about their husbands. Respondents were asked about their 1965 income,
both individual and combined, their occupation, whether they had been
employed since marriage, if and when they stopped working, and whether
they were self-employed. They were also asked about their husband's
recent employment status. With respect to family background,
respondents were asked about their parents' and their husband's
parents' nationalities, education, religious preferences, and total
number children born alive to their mother and mother-in-law,
respectively. In addition, respondents were asked about their, and
their husband's, religious practices including their religious
preferences, whether they had ever received any Catholic education,
how religious-minded they perceived themselves to be, how often they
prayed at home, and how often they went to see a minister, rabbi, or
priest. Respondents were asked to give their opinions with respect to
contraception and sterilization. They were asked whether they
approved or disapproved of contraception in general, as well as
specific forms of contraception, whether information about birth
control should be available to married and unmarried couples, and
whether the federal government should support birth control programs
in the United States and in other countries. They were also asked
whether they approved or disapproved of sterilization operations for
men and women and whether they thought such a surgery would impair a
man's sexual ability. Respondents were asked about their own
knowledge and use of birth control pills. They were asked if they had
ever used birth control pills and when they first began using
them. They were then asked to give a detailed account of their use of
birth control pills between 1960 and 1965. Respondents were also asked
to explain when they discontinued use of birth control pills and what
the motivation was for doing so. Respondents were also asked about
their reproductive cycle, the most fertile days in their cycle, the
regularity of their cycle, and whether there were any known reasons
why they could not have or would have problems having children.
Respondents were asked about their ideal number of children, whether
they had their ideal number of children or if they really wanted fewer
children, as well as whether their husbands wanted more or less
children than they did. Respondents were then asked how many
additional births they expected, how many total births they expected,
when they expected their next child, and at what age they expected to
have their last child. Respondents were asked how they felt about
interrupting a pregnancy and whether they approved of abortion given
different circumstances such as if the pregnancy endangered the
woman's health, if the woman was not married, if the couple could not
afford another child, if the couple did not want another child, if the
woman thought the child would be deformed, or if the woman had been
raped. Respondents were also asked to share their opinions with
respect to world population growth. They were asked whether certain
countries' populations were growing faster or slower than the United
States, if they considered overall world population growth to be a
serious problem, and how serious the problem of population growth,
both in the United States and worldwide, was relative to other
problems such as poverty and crime. The survey also included a
thorough review of all of the respondents' pregnancies and their
outcomes.
description: To adjust for differential sampling rates, the following
weights must be used: (1) White and other women less than age 45: 1.0, (2)
White and other women aged 45-55: 2.0, (3) Black women less than age 45:
0.365863, and (4) Black women aged 45-55: 0.6070.
description: Response Rates: A total of 5,617 woman were interviewed out of the
original 6,397 eligible woman, yielding a response rate of
approximately 88 percent.
description: Characteristics of the sampled women were compared with
those of women in the same age groups from the March 1965 and March
1966 Current Population Surveys (CPS). Among Black women aged 14-44,
there was a considerable discrepancy between the proportion married
and living with a husband in the sample (12.9 percent) and the
proportion in the CPS surveys (9.4 percent). The proportion of Black
women under age 25 was also higher in the sample than in the CPS. The
sample also somewhat under-represents women with no children and may
over-represent women in the higher education categories, although this
comparison can only be estimated.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: National Fertility Survey, 1965
description: Currently married women, born after July 1, 1910, living
with their husbands, able to participate in an English language
interview. The maximum age at the time of the interview was 55.
description: face-to-face interviewThe original variable names, as documented in the
codebook, have been changed. However, the original variable names may
be referenced and can be found in brackets at the end of each variable
label. Because these variable names are simply the letter "V" followed
by the variable number, they correspond to the variable number column
in the codebook index.The dataset includes several variables that
contain data for questions that had multiple parts, each requiring a
yes/no response. For example, Q.263 asked the interviewer whether
there were other people present at the interview and gave six options:
no one, children under age 6, older children, husband, other
relatives, and other adults. For each of these six options, the
interviewer responded either "yes, present" [1] or "no, not present"
[0]. The original variable (V4) contained a six-digit code that was a
combination of ones and zeros that corresponded to the responses given
for each of the six parts. In order to be able to analyze the
responses to each part, the original variable was recoded into six
unique variables (INT_OTH_1 to INT_OTH6), each containing the response
to one and only one part of the original question.Certain
variables contain dates that appear as three-digit century month
codes. Please see pages 122-123 (the original codebook page numbers
are located in the upper right-hand corner) for a translation of the
century month codes into standard month and year.The following
variables contain undocumented codes, which are given in parentheses: CH3_DIEDDT, CH5_DIEDDT, CH7_DIEDDT, FEC_PROB2The following variable contains codes that appear to be outside of
the expected range and the documentation does not indicate that the
code has any other significance: H_PAR_CEB.For the following
variables, the codebook suggests that any codes greater than 19 have
been combined into one code (19=19+), however the data lists all of
the codes individually: CH1_NOTOWN3, CH3_NOTOWN3, CH1_BFMO, CH2_BFMO,
CH3_BFMO, CH4_BFMO, CH5_BFMO, CH6_BFMO, CH7_BFMO, CH8_BFMO, CH9_BFMO,
CH11_BFMO.Additional information regarding this study is
available from the
Office of Population
Research at Princeton University and at the
Data
and Information Services Center at the University of Wisconsin.