“If You Don’t Have a Baby, You Can’t Be in Our Culture”: Migrant and Refugee Women’s Experiences and Constructions of Fertility and Fertility Control

Abstract

The present study was designed to explore experiences and constructions of fertility and fertility control among new migrant and refugee women in Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada. Seventy-eight individual interviews and 15 focus groups (n = 82) were conducted with women who had migrated from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and South America. Participants positioned having children as a cultural and religious mandate and as central to a woman’s identity. Many women had limited knowledge about contraception, positioned contraception as forbidden or dangerous, and described negative experiences with its use. These findings are interpreted in relation to the provision of culturally safe medical practice and sexual and reproductive health education.