Unintended childbearing is associated with poorer parental well-being, but most scholarship in this area takes an individual-level approach to unintended childbearing. Drawing on couple data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), I treat unintended childbearing as a couple-level construct to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how individuals’ intentions, partners’ intentions, and gender are linked with psychological distress in the transition to parenthood. I make two chief contributions to prior research. First, the inclusion of fathers’ perspectives provides an important addition to research, which primarily focuses on mothers’ unintended childbearing. Second, I assess gender differences in the association between couples’ intentions and health. For mothers, one’s own intentions appeared most closely tied to distress regardless of the father’s intentions, whereas fathers reported more depressive symptoms if either parent did not intend the birth. Formal post-estimation tests of differences in the magnitude of coefficients for mothers and fathers suggest few gender differences exist in the association between couples’ intentions and psychological distress. For mothers and fathers alike, belonging to a couple where neither parent intended the birth was consistently associated with the highest levels of distress. Implications for policy and research are discussed in relation to findings.

中文翻译：

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性别，夫妻的生育意愿和父母的抑郁症状

意外生育与父母的幸福感较弱有关，但是该领域的大多数奖学金都采用个人层面的方法来应对意外生育。利用早期儿童纵向队列研究（ECLS-B）中的夫妇数据，我将意外生育视为夫妇级别的结构，以便更全面地了解个人意图，伴侣的意图和性别如何与向父母身份过渡的心理困扰。我对先前的研究做出了两个主要贡献。首先，父亲观点的纳入为研究提供了重要的补充，研究主要侧重于母亲的意外生育。其次，我评估了夫妻的意愿和健康之间的性别差异。对于母亲来说 不论父亲的意图如何，自己的意图似乎都与苦难紧密相关，而如果父母一方不打算分娩，父亲就会报告出更多的抑郁症状。对父亲和母亲的系数幅度差异进行正式的估计后检验，结果表明，夫妻的意图与心理困扰之间的性别差异很少。对于父母双方来说，属于一对父母都不希望分娩的夫妇始终与最高的痛苦水平相关。对政策和研究的意义与研究结果进行了讨论。对父亲和母亲的系数幅度差异进行正式的估计后检验，结果表明，夫妻的意图与心理困扰之间的性别差异很少。对于父母双方来说，属于一对父母都不希望分娩的夫妇始终与最高的痛苦水平相关。对政策和研究的意义与研究结果进行了讨论。对父亲和母亲的系数幅度的差异进行正式的估计后检验，结果表明，夫妻的意图和心理困扰之间的性别差异很少。对于父母双方来说，属于一对父母都不希望分娩的夫妇始终与最高的痛苦水平相关。对政策和研究的意义与研究结果进行了讨论。