data insights: Data link roundup (week of September 27, 2013)

The week's top data analysis links...
in honor of World Contraception Day.

FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT FERTILITY AND CONTRACEPTION

The Guttmacher Institute is always my go-to source for information about contraceptive use. In honor of World Contraception Day, here are some striking facts about contraceptive use in the United States:

Far more married women (77%) than never-married (42%) use contraception
99% of US women (age 15-44 and who have ever had sex) have used at least 1 contraceptive method
Contraceptive use is common among women of all religious denominations, including:

Nearly 90 percent of Catholics and Protestant women (who are currently having sex but do not want to get pregnant) currently use a contraceptive method.
Among sexually experienced religious women, 99% of Catholics and Protestants have ever used some form of contraception.

UNINTENDED PREGNANCY

This map highlights states where unintended pregnancy rates are highest (Mississippi, Louisiana, California), and where annual public spending on unintended pregnancy exceeds $1 billion per year (in the states of California, Texas thanks, no doubt, to their large population size).

Source: Maps on the Web

PREMARITAL SEX, CONCEPTION, AND SHOTGUN MARRIAGES

Rising rates of premarital conception (and, likely, rising rates of premarital sex) accounted for the increasing number of premarital first births to women born between 1920 and 1949.

BUT for women born later (between 1945-64) increases in premarital first births were primarily attributable to declines in "shotgun marriages," according to new research published in the journal Demography.

BIRTHDATE MATTERS

In response to my post last week about the high frequency of August and September birthdays, @DrDemography shared a great link... on how pregnancy due date may affect an infant's health. (For causality, think flu season...)

BEST CHART OF THE WEEK

Following on last week's theme about the frequency of birthdays, this infographic shows not only frequency by birth month, but also by day...