statistic for social science forum
k.nhep
genderpreferenceforabortionforanyreason.pptx
Anna M Mowl
American Public University
Gender Preference for Abortion for Any Reason
The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not a person’s gender is a factor in their preference towards a woman’s choice to have an abortion for any reason. The choice of whether or not a woman can have an abortion for any reason is most definitely an opinionated heated discussion. The topic of abortion has developed into one which is commonly debated among the policy and decision makers from the level of president all the way down to the local level. Many have voiced the opinion that abortion is okay given certain circumstances. Example: it is okay to obtain an abortion as the results of rape. Other have voiced that it is not okay period. This discussion will show you through surveys the opinion of the American population in 2012 on whether or not an abortion is okay for any reason and does gender play a role in one’s opinion?
Introduction
As stated in the introduction, our data is going to be of the American Population. All results are going to be from the General Social Survey; otherwise known as, the GSS. Well, what is the GSS? It is a national American adult survey. We focused in the year 2012. At this time, 1974 adult Americans participated. By American adults, we mean those of at least 18 years of age, who are noninstitutionalized, English-speaking, and of the age 18 years represented the entire United Stated adult population (Babbie, et al., 2015, p. 25). For the year 2012, the GSS was funded by the National Science Foundation and other private sources; thus, allowing the GSS data to be gathered by face-to-face household interviews (Babbie, et al., 2015, p. 25).
General Social Survey
Variables
For this study, we have two variables: ABANY and GENDER1. Here is the literal question for ABANY. It was pulled from the SPSS data survey: “Please tell me whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion: G. If the woman wants it for any reason? (GSS Data Explorer, n.d).” Here is the literal question used for GENDER1 that was also pulled from the SPSS data survey: “Gender of first person (GSS Data Explorer, n.d).” Both variables are nominal.
A histogram is usually presented in the form of a graph: bar chart, pie chart, ect (Wetcher-Hendricks, 2011, p. 65)… For the purpose of this study, we did a bar chart. Due to the lack of categories, it seemed the easiest to read. The bar chart is below. From looking at it, we can see that more males answered the survey then females. For the other chart, we can see that the general population replied “no”. So, people are mainly against an abortion for any reason.
Histograms
Even with the awesome histogram, it did not answer the question on does gender play a role in their opinion of abortion for any reason. Neither does the frequency chart. The frequency chart is nice in that it gives you the actual percentages. Example: 57.3% were males and 42.7% were females that answered the survey. Another reading of the charts is 44.4% answered yes; while, 55.6% answered no “Please tell me whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion: G. If the woman wants it for any reason? (GSS Data Explorer, n.d).”
Frequencies
While histograms and frequencies are great, they did not answer our question of whether or not a person’s gender is a factor in preference towards a woman’s choice to have an abortion for any reason. Thus, we have to combine the two to answer our question. This is where a crosstabulation comes to play. A crosstabulation will tell us how many males voted yes or no and how many females voted for yes or no (Stuart-Hamilton, 2007, p. 79). In this case, 309 males voted yes; while, 407 voted no. For the females, 245 voted yes; while, 287 voted no.
Crosstabulation
Research Question: Is there a difference among gender when it comes to the support of a woman to have an abortion for any reason?
H1- A person’s gender will influence their support of a woman’s choice of having an abortion for any reason.
H0 - A person’s gender will not influence their support of a woman’s choice of having an abortion for any reason.
Independent Variable- ABANY Dependent Variable- GENDER1
Research Questions
A correlation defines the strength of the relationship between two variables (Stuart-Hamilton, 2007, p. 74). This number ranges from -1.00 to +1.00. If the number is 0.00, there is no relationship. If the number is between .01 to .09, it is weak. It does not matter if it negative or positive. This goes on all the way up to number 1.00 (Babbie, et al., 2015, p. 215). Lambda is one of the tests a person can use to find out the correlation. This one was chosen due to having two nominal variables. This is one of the few tests for nominal by nominal.
Correlations (Lambda Test)
The results of the Lambda correlation test shows: there is no correlation between our two variables of ABANY and GENDER1. So, our research hypothesis (H1 ), a person’s gender will influence their support of a woman’s choice of having an abortion for any reason, is still yet to be determined. Meanwhile, it seems are null hypothesis to be more accurate. Our null hypothesis (H0) states a person’s gender will not influence their support of a woman’s choice of having an abortion for any reason. How did we determine this? Well, our numbers are .000 and .001. This defines no relationship (Babbie, et al., 2015, p. 215).
9
Just like to any study, a person or researcher needs to test their hypothesis to prove if it is true. There are five steps to hypothesis testing: Step 1 is to restate the question as a research hypothesis and a null hypothesis. For this study, the H1- A person’s gender will influence their support of a woman’s choice of having an abortion for any reason and the H0 - A person’s gender will not influence their support of a woman’s choice of having an abortion for any reason. Step 2 is determine the confidence interval. It is usually .05. Step 3 conducted the analysis. We used the SPSS and will have a chart. Step 4 is determining the Sig or Sig 2-tail; otherwise known as, the “p” value. Last step, step 5 is comparing the numbers in steps 2 and 4 and applying the following rule: If p < or = confidence interval, you reject the null hypothesis (Babbie, et al., 2015, p. 136-162).
Hypothesis Testing
Chi-Square
There are multiple options to test the significance. For this study, I picked chi-square as it is appropriate for two nominal variables (Babbie et al., 2015, p. 264). This test covers more aspects then just nominal variables and is a very popular choice in determining the significance. This is where the hypothesis testing comes into play. If p < or = confidence interval, you reject the null hypothesis (Babbie, et al., 2015, p. 136-162). In this case, our confidence interval is .05 and our sig is .328 and .168. Both are greater than .05. So, our p is > .05 and we cannot reject the null hypothesis.
Tests of Significance
A review of previous studies provides us will a background of the information uncovered during previous research. The literature covered in this study will help to develop our understanding of the topic and its relation to our hypothesis. The review of the literature will examine the test of significance used, their findings, and the research question asked by their study. We will cover 2 articles.
Article 1: Reasons U.S. women have abortions: Quantitative and qualitative perspectives
Article 2: Reason woman give abortion: a review of the literature
Review of the Literature
What test of significance did the researchers use (context)? The researchers in this article used a structured survey which was completed by 1,209 abortion patients at 11 large providers, along to in-depth interviews that were conducted with 38 women at four sites. The information from the surveys was then analyzed to determine the differences in the reasons for abortion across the various subgroups. The study was accomplished using a quantitative component in the form of the surveys and a qualitative component in the form of the in-depth interviews.
What were their findings? The findings from the surveys showed that the reasons women choose to have an abortion are diverse. The most frequently cited reason was that having a child would interfere with the woman’s education, work, or ability to care for dependents and that she could not afford a baby now. The findings also determined that younger women reported that they were not prepared for the transition into motherhood.
What was their research question and what were their findings with regards to their statistics (validity)? The research question asked by the research team was “What personal, familial, social, and economic factors lead to the decision to end a pregnancy?” The findings in regards to the statistics uncovered by the survey and the interviews showed that the decision to have an abortion is motivated by a multitude of unrelated reasons. The research did uncover that the primary motivations women had to end their pregnancy hinged upon their perceived ability to care for the child financially, this motivation was universal across the age groups surveyed. This research compared its results with previous surveys conducted between 1985 and 2002 and found changes including a declined abortion rate of 22% between 1987 and 2002.
Article 1: Reasons U.S. women have abortions: Quantitative and qualitative perspectives
What test of significance did the researchers use (context and validity)? The researchers looked at 8 different databases to find their research on abortion. The research was limited to the years 1996-2007. The search used these keywords: abortion and reason, induced abortion, or termination of pregnancy. It generated 1359 peer reviewed articles (the validity) and they were able to narrow down to 19 papers from 8 different countries. They analyzed the data by using the qualitative method (questionnaire), quantitative method (interview), and aggregative synthesis.
What were their findings? The woman gave several answer categories: wrong timing, too young, women’s health (physical and/or mental), family completed/not wanting more children, doesn’t want any children, don’t want a disabled child, partner doesn’t want the child, financially can’t afford the child, others not believing in her to raise the child, rape, and fear the baby will bring to their life.
What was their research question and what were their findings with regards to their statistics? They researched what the reason women give for an abortion. Their findings in regards to the statistics were the following: for wrong timing, it did not give me statistical data. It just mentioned that this was the most common and picked reason out of all the research combined. Too young they didn’t list statistics for this one either. They just gave examples of what the women stated during an interview. For women’s health (physical and/or mental), they stated was highly rated. Family completed/not wanting more children was selected by 45% of the women. Doesn’t want any children was stated in four papers and that is all the info they gave. Don’t want a disabled child was rated as the 10thhighest reason. Partner doesn’t want the child was 11%. Financially can’t afford the child was a primary reason as 42.4%. Others not believing in her to raise the child this was broken down into partner (11%) and other relationships (which they didn’t specific). Fear the baby would dramatically change their life was the ultimate high at 74%.
Article 2: Reason woman give abortion: a review of the literature
Let’s recap, this studies Research Question is the following: Is there a difference among gender when it comes to the support of a woman to have an abortion for any reason? From this we developed a research and null hypothesis. They were: H1- A person’s gender will influence their support of a woman’s choice of having an abortion for any reason and the H0 - A person’s gender will not influence their support of a woman’s choice of having an abortion for any reason. In order to run test, we had to decide what variables pertained to our research question and chose ABANY for the independent variable and GENDER1 for the dependent variable. All our testing, lambda, chi-square, etc… lead to one thing that we cannot reject our hypothesis. The previous studies examine the multitude of reasons women choose to have a legal abortion when compared with our findings the literature appears to follow what we have uncovered with our examination of our variables. It seems this study has verified there is no difference in opinion when it comes to an abortion for any reason.
Conclusion
Babbie, E., Wagner, W. E., & Zaino, J. (2015). Adventures in Social Research: Data Analysis Using IBM SPSS Statistics (9th ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Finer, L. B., Frohwirth, L. F., Dauphinee, L. A., Singh, S., & Moore, A. M. (2005). Reasons U.S. women have abortions: Quantitative and qualitative perspectives.Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 37(3), 110-8. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/224549263?accountid=8289
GSS Data Explorer | NORC at the University of Chicago. (n.d.). Retrieved from https ://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/variables/607/vshow
Kirkman, M., Rowe, H., Hardiman, A., Mallett, S., & Rosenthal, D. (2009). Reasons women give for abortion: A review of the literature. Archives of Women's Mental Health, 12(6), 365-78. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00737-009-0084-3
Stuart-Hamilton, I. (2007). Dictionary of Psychological Testing, Assessment and Treatment : Second Edition (2). London, GB: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Wetcher-Hendricks, D. (2011). Analyzing Quantitative Data : An Introduction for Social Researchers (1). Somerset, US: Wiley. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
References
