High and growing disapproval of sex-selection technology in Australia

Table 1 Logistic regressions. Responses to “Do you approve or disapprove of the use of IVF technology [abortion] to avoid characteristics of children such as: a certain sex”. Strongly disapprove (vs Disapprove, Neither, Approve, Strongly Approve), by survey year, and respondent sex, age, education and religious attendance

Sample characteristics	IVF					Abortion
Sample characteristics	Odds ratio	95% CI	p-value	Pred. prob.	n	Odds ratio	95% CI	p-value	Pred. prob.	n
SEX
Ref: Male	1.00			0.378	1836	1.00			0.506	1845
Female	1.39	(1.21–1.59)	0.000	0.457	1945	1.31	(1.14–1.49)	0.000	0.572	1959
AGE
Ref: 17–34 years	1.00			0.470	666	1.00			0.686	672
35–49 years	0.95	(0.77–1.16)	0.606	0.457	989	0.77	(0.63–0.94)	0.012	0.627	987
50–64 years	0.95	(0.78–1.16)	0.611	0.457	1215	0.61	(0.50–0.75)	0.000	0.572	1223
65+ years	0.57	(0.46–0.72)	0.000	0.337	878	0.39	(0.31–0.49)	0.000	0.462	886
EDUCATION
Ref: Bachelor degree or above	1.00			0.536	1030	1.00			0.649	1038
Other post-school qualification	0.73	(0.62–0.86)	0.000	0.457	1588	0.72	(0.62–0.85)	0.000	0.572	1590
Year 12 or equivalent	0.71	(0.55–0.91)	0.007	0.450	377	0.64	(0.50–0.82)	0.000	0.543	380
Year 10/11 or equivalent	0.59	(0.46–0.74)	0.000	0.403	500	0.50	(0.40–0.63)	0.000	0.479	505
Below Year 10	0.56	(0.41–0.77)	0.000	0.393	261	0.41	(0.31–0.56)	0.000	0.433	264
RELIGIOUS ATTENDANCE
Ref: Never	1.00			0.483	1465	1.00			0.601	1471
Once a year or less frequently	0.90	(0.76–1.07)	0.234	0.457	1074	0.89	(0.75–1.05)	0.157	0.572	1074
Several times a year	0.90	(0.72–1.11)	0.318	0.455	497	0.97	(0.79–1.20)	0.806	0.595	499
Once a month or more	1.29	(1.06–1.57)	0.010	0.547	651	1.27	(1.05–1.54)	0.016	0.656	664
YEAR
Ref: 2007	1.00			0.365	2596	1.00			0.472	2613
2016	1.47	(1.26–1.70)	0.000	0.457	1216	1.50	(1.29–1.73)	0.000	0.572	1221
Total sample					3812					3834

Source: Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, 2007 and 2016
Ref: Reference category
95% CI: 95% confidence interval for odds ratios
Pred. prob.: Predicted probability. Other characteristics set at Female, 50–64 years, Other post-school qualification, Once or year or less frequently, 2016
Don’t know/No response cases for the dependent variable are excluded from analysis
Don’t know/Other/No response cases for independent variables are included in the analysis but not shown
p-values of less than 0.05 are considered significant

ISSN: 1742-4755