Educational Books and Games:

Just the Facts: Family Planning and Fertility in the U.S.

Prepared by: Rodolfo Bulatao (editing by Michael Carley and Kathryn Murrell)

Authored by Dr. Rodolfo A. Bulatao, this book provides a concise overview of family planning and fertility in the U.S.-from the number of babies women have, to the risks they run in having them and the measures they choose to avoid pregnancy, to the dollars saved with fewer unwanted births. Based on the social science literature as of mid-1997, the book provides easily digestible nuggets of facts about this intimate but important area of human behavior.

American fertility behavior is changing. Still it remains remarkably inefficient, with more than half of all conceptions being unintended by the partners, and most of these occurring despite the use of contraception. There is much to be said for privacy and romance in this area, but it is also important to understand fertility and contraception as social phenomena, with large consequences for individual lives and for the society as a whole.

Each observation in this book is documented with a reference. Facts change, and our hope is that laying out these facts here will encourage others to try to change them for the better. We also hope it will encourage continued study of how and why Americans choose to regulate or not to regulate their childbearing as they do and how these patterns are gradually changing.

This book serves as a companion to a earlier report issued by Sociometrics, also entitled Just the Facts, that focused on teenage sexuality and pregnancy in the U.S.