Low-income women describe fertility-related expectations: descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and behavior.

Social norms surrounding sexuality, pregnancy, and childbearing may help guide women's health-related behaviors. In this study, we explore low-income women's perceptions of fertility-related norms by allowing women to describe their experiences with normative expectations. Semistructured interviews (n = 30) suggested that women in low-income subject positions articulate descriptive norms that generally correspond with mainstream descriptive norms, identify two major sources of injunctive norms concerning fertility and sexuality- authoritative and peer-oriented-and often align their behaviors according to subgroup expectations communicated in the form of peer-oriented injunctive norms. We discuss these results in light of the extant literature on social norms.