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Case Study Research and Applications Design and Methods

• Robert K. Yin - COSMOS Corporation
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Password-protected Instructor Resources include the following:

• An expanded glossary provided by the author in the form of downloadable Briefs.
• Additional tutorials written by the author which correspond to Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6.
• A selection of author Robert Yin's SAGE journal articles.
• Tables and figures from the book available for download.

“The book is filled with tips to the researcher on how to master the craft of doing research overall and specifically how to account for multi-layered cases.”

“Yin covers all of the basic and advanced knowledge for conducting case study and why they are useful for specific research studies without getting lost in the weeds.”

“The applications enhance the original material because it gives the reader concrete examples.”

“Yin is much more in-depth on case study methods both within a general qualitative text and any other case study text I have seen.”

On demand used as recommendation for basic literature for case study research

An essential reading for people doing case studies.

very thoruogh introduction

Very good introduction to Case Study design. I have used case study approach for my PhD study. I would recommend this book for an indepth understanding of case study design for research projects.

Dr Siew Lee School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedic Practice Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.

The book is a really good introduction to case study research and is full of useful examples. I will recommend as the definitive source for students interested in pursuing this further in their projects.

In our Doctor of Ministerial Leadership (DML), Case Study is the Methodology that is required in this program. Robert Yin's book provides the foundational knowledge needed to conduct research using his Case Study design.

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Preface: Spotlighting "Case Study Research"

Chapter 1: Getting Started

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Case Study Research: Design and Methods (Applied Social Research Methods) Fifth Edition

There is a newer edition of this item:.

• ISBN-10 1452242569
• ISBN-13 978-1452242569
• Edition Fifth
• Publisher SAGE Publications, Inc
• Publication date May 10, 2013
• Language English
• Dimensions 7.25 x 0.5 x 9.25 inches
• Print length 312 pages
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

About the author.

Robert K. Yin is President of COSMOS Corporation, an applied research and social science firm.  Over the years, COSMOS has successfully completed hundreds of projects for federal agencies, state and local agencies, and private foundations.

Outside of COSMOS, Dr. Yin has assisted numerous other research groups, helping to train their field teams or to design research studies. The most recent such engagements have been with The World Bank, the Division of Special Education and disAbility Research at George Mason University, the Department of Nursing Research and Quality Outcomes at the Children’s National Health System (Washington, DC), and the School of Education, Southern New Hampshire University.

Dr. Yin has authored over 100 publications, including authoring or editing 11 books (not counting the multiple editions of any given book). Earlier editions of the present book have been translated into eight languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Romanian, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese), and a second book on Qualitative Research from Start to Finish (2016) is in its 2nd edition and has been translated into four languages (Chinese, Korean, Swedish, and Portuguese).  Dr. Yin received his B.A. in history from Harvard College (magna cum laude) and his Ph.D. in brain and cognitive sciences from MIT.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ SAGE Publications, Inc; Fifth edition (May 10, 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 312 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1452242569
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1452242569
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.25 x 0.5 x 9.25 inches
• #209 in Medical Psychology Research
• #239 in Social Sciences Methodology
• #474 in Social Sciences Research

About the author

Robert k. yin.

Robert K. Yin, Ph.D., serves as Chairman of the Board and CEO of COSMOS Corporation, an applied research and social science firm that has been in operation since 1980. Over the years, COSMOS has successfully completed hundreds of projects for government agencies, private foundations, and other entrepreneurial and non-profit organizations. At COSMOS, Dr. Yin actively leads various research projects, including those in which the case study method is used. He has authored numerous books and peer-reviewed articles, including Case Study Research and Applications of Case Study Research. In 1998 he founded the “Robert K. Yin Fund” at M.I.T., which supports seminars on brain sciences, as well as other activities related to the advancement of pre-doctoral students in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

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A Case Study of US National Debt: 2008–2018

National debt in the United States has the potential to impact every citizen and resident of the nation because of the cascading nature of the financial impact on nearly all aspects of everyday life. This could be from increased taxes on a federal level to downstream impacts on programs provided by the government, like social security. National debt accumulates when the government spends more than it has in tax revenue and takes on loans at the federal level. These loans have interest, which increases the amount of money owed by the government. The more money owed through loans, the more interest, and the further in the red the nation becomes financially. A somewhat partisan political issue, the national debt is frequently in the news cycle, especially in periods when the national debt ceiling, or maximum debt allowed, is reached or close to being reached.

Some of this debt is held internally—meaning by entities within the United States, such as the Social Security Administration or other governmental organizations. Foreign or external debt, on the other hand, is debt held by an entity, like a nation, that is outside the United States. Debts held internally by the Treasury or other domestic institutions have significantly different impacts than debts held externally, largely because of varying interest rates dictated by the nation or entity holding the debt.

Through a capstone-level political science course, International Political Economy, I was able to research the impacts of externally versus internally held debt on the United States’ overall indebtedness. I used the time period of approximately 2008–2018 as a case study. The cost of debt was amplified during this time because of the recovery from the 2008 recession, the effects of which the government aimed to mitigate through additional stimulus spending. Using this period as a case study illustrates a time when the United States was heavily reliant on external foreign debts and was spending more than it was taking in, leading to significant financial deficits for the nation (ECLAC, 2023). The total US debt rose by about $12 trillion during the period of 2008–2018, almost doubling the national debt held in 2008 (Fiscal Data Explains the National Debt, 2023) ).

Research Methods

I began my research by analyzing the types of national debt held by the United States, and its impact on US society. I completed a comprehensive analysis using both qualitative and quantitative data, largely through a literature review of a variety of sources, including US Treasury and government files, scholarly journals, and think tank reports. I also identified trends of US debt and changes in how other nations perceived US foreign debt over time.

A major part of the national debt structure for the United States during the time period of my case study was the impact of high-interest foreign debts, which are held in the form of securities and used to allow for governmental discretionary spending. Many such debts were acquired during the post–World War II era, also known as the Bretton Woods era, from 1944 to 1973. During this time, the United States was lending money to rebuilding and developing nations through the Bretton Woods accords, with the purpose of establishing the US dollar as an international currency. This was achieved through the exchanging of other nations’ gold into US dollars at a fixed rate. This lending was structured to help foster relations between the United States and other countries but put the United States at risk as it took on debt. While gold is a tangible asset, the process of exchange meant there was a negative impact on the US debt. The willingness to trade dollars for gold led to US hegemony, or international dominance, through the formation of an international trade system. Much of this dominance was structured around the ability to provide a central currency for trade through using the US dollar (U.S. Department of State, 2019).

By using sources such as “The Economic Consequences of Rising U.S. Government Debt,” as well as data derived from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, I was able to analyze potential correlations and causality between national debt and foreign debt levels in the 2010s.

The “Economic Consequences of Rising U.S. Government Debt” article was published in a German financial journal, FinanzArchiv , which focuses on the impacts of public finance on Germany. Consulting this source allowed for an interesting outside perspective on the perils of US debt on the rest of the world. The data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), released in 2023, was effectively a report done on the economic conditions of the world, focusing on the fiscal impacts of economic factors on Latin America and the Caribbean. This report was important because it had financial data that showed how the high-interest foreign debts held externally had a negative impact on the United States. The report contained debt information pertaining to the United States and all the countries that held US external debts during the time period of my case study.

From this data, I looked for trends of who was holding the US external debt, what the cost of the debt was, and how much debt was held over time. With the information from these sources, I looked at the impacts of external debts on the overall amount of US national debt over time. These sources were used to determine the potential for reducing overall US national debt through a means of foreign debt reduction during this period of time and whether that approach would have been viable.

 This research project deepened my understanding of how debt works and why debt is relevant to the US and international economy. One key finding was that foreign debts, and external debts in general, are typically held at higher interest rates than debts held internally by a nation, such as the United States. My research revealed that in the 2010s, the national debt of the United States was largely held by two nations, Japan and China. However, these nations decreased their holdings of US debts by approximately 35% of what the two had held together, a reduction of approximately 7% of the United States’ total national debt at the time (ECLAC, 2023). This period of decreased holdings occurred just after the 2008 financial crisis, and continued through the end of the study period, 2018.

Japan and China did this to avoid the risk of potential financial pitfalls, such as the United States defaulting on a loan since it was in a recession. This divestment was accomplished through decreased further financial investment, which led to these securities being held internally by the U.S. My research showed that a reduction in continued investment by nations such as Japan or China did not inherently correlate to a reduction in national debt, something I was surprised to learn. This was because of the fact that the nations were not eliminating the debts altogether, but instead were reducing the amount of debt they held. This means that the US debt shifted elsewhere, primarily to internal holdings. Internal debt is not subject to the same interest rates as external debts because of the obligations being owed to the government itself and not an outside entity. Additionally, internally held debt is more often focused on money being lent only to maintain the government’s own operations.

However, holding a greater percentage of debt internally is a smart move for the United States, because between 2013 and 2018, there was approximately $103 billion of interest on the US external debt (ECLAC, 2023). This 103bn figure is effectively the cost of debt held externally and is more expensive than if the same amount of debt had been held internally. This gradual move from external to internal debts during the study period should have a positive impact on overall indebtedness because of the often-lower interest rates on debts that are held internally by the government itself. As is true of most debts, reduction of higher-interest debt is a potential solution to decreasing the overall cost of the debt itself, that cost being the economic burden that the debt carries.

Although the United States’ national debt was not reduced from decreasing external debts during the time period of my case study, long term, the larger degree of control US entities have over debt held within US borders will have a positive impact on our overall indebtedness. The United States in its current state is reliant on debt to function, in part to retain its status as a global hegemon. Programs such as social security and Medicare/Medicaid take on much of this burden of the debt, because they are the programs lending the government funds so that necessary government functions can occur. This causes burdens on these programs, as they are lending money to the government instead of investing in the taxpayer.

Reduction of the US national debt is a hot topic in many circles, and the answer of how or whether the debt should be reduced is up for debate. My research revealed that the United States in the 2010s did not have a particular goal of reducing external debts and/or the overall national debt. This was evidenced by a rapidly increasing national debt during this period to blunt the recession. While foreign debt was reduced during this time, it did not have a significant impact on the overall US national debt in the 2010s. This was where an inconclusive answer to the research question came in.

It is important to note that as inflation occurs, the relative cost of foreign debt increases. In the time period of my case study, this was not a significant issue, but in the post-pandemic era, there is a much greater potential for this to become problematic with significant international economic inflation. The big-picture ramifications were that the US economy is working its way toward being less dependent on foreign debts and is attempting to not be overcome by high-interest external debts. The national debt is currently escalating at a record pace, and internal discretionary spending may be the culprit. Coming into the election cycle post-Covid, it is very important to recognize the potential ramifications the massive US debt has on the public. From this research, I have gained knowledge on political questions, and the way that the economy, especially national debt, does not follow as linear of a path as I originally expected.

I would like to thank my mentor, Dr. Reardon, for helping to guide me through this project and helping me come up with a viable research plan. I would also like to thank my friend Dylan Cordle, who kept me on track, reviewed my work, and aided me when I needed it during the research process.

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. “Trends and Major Holders of U.S. Federal Debt.” Publication | Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. CEPAL, January 23, 2023. https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/44595-trends-and-major-holders-us… .

“Fiscal Data Explains the National Debt.” 2023. Fiscaldata.treasury.gov. 2023. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%20100%20years .

US Department of State. 2019. “The Bretton Woods Conference, 1944.” State.gov. 2019. https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwii/98681.htm .

Author and Mentor Bios

Drew Dickinson , from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, graduated in May 2023 with a political science degree from the University of New Hampshire. His research was completed for a political science capstone course, International Political Economy, with Lawrence C. Reardon. Drew was interested in this subject because of the political nature of national debt and his own questions about the importance of foreign debt. While the results of his research were different from his original hypothesis, Drew found the research process rewarding. He decided to submit the piece to Inquiry after his mentor showed so much confidence in the research he had conducted. Drew plans to continue his education with a master’s degree in political science and to continue asking questions, especially if the answers are different from what he expected.

Dr. Lawrence C. Reardon is a professor of political science and has taught at the University of New Hampshire since 1991. He specializes in international relations with a focus on greater China. This research brief came from Drew’s capstone project for Dr. Reardon’s seminar course on international political economy. He considers mentoring undergraduate researchers one of his most important tasks and has worked with at least one other Inquiry author, Susannah Pratt. What he especially appreciated about working with Drew was his understanding of the importance of the scientific approach. Drew’s capstone paper tested a hypothesis that in the end could not be proved. His argument that the US internal debts are a more important factor than external debts is a relevant finding. This is an issue that the Chinese are currently facing with a very large internal debt, especially at the local levels, while the US $1 trillion+ lent to foreigners under the Belt and Road Initiative scheme could also become problematic domestically.

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Copyright © Drew Dickinson

• Research Article

Regions & Countries

What the data says about abortion in the u.s..

Pew Research Center has conducted many surveys about abortion over the years, providing a lens into Americans’ views on whether the procedure should be legal, among a host of other questions.

In a  Center survey  conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that  ended the constitutional right to abortion , 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. Another survey conducted a few months before the decision showed that relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the issue .

Find answers to common questions about abortion in America, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, which have tracked these patterns for several decades:

How many abortions are there in the U.S. each year?

How has the number of abortions in the u.s. changed over time, what is the abortion rate among women in the u.s. how has it changed over time, what are the most common types of abortion, how many abortion providers are there in the u.s., and how has that number changed, what percentage of abortions are for women who live in a different state from the abortion provider, what are the demographics of women who have had abortions, when during pregnancy do most abortions occur, how often are there medical complications from abortion.

This compilation of data on abortion in the United States draws mainly from two sources: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, both of which have regularly compiled national abortion data for approximately half a century, and which collect their data in different ways.

The CDC data that is highlighted in this post comes from the agency’s “abortion surveillance” reports, which have been published annually since 1974 (and which have included data from 1969). Its figures from 1973 through 1996 include data from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and New York City – 52 “reporting areas” in all. Since 1997, the CDC’s totals have lacked data from some states (most notably California) for the years that those states did not report data to the agency. The four reporting areas that did not submit data to the CDC in 2021 – California, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey – accounted for approximately 25% of all legal induced abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to Guttmacher’s data. Most states, though,  do  have data in the reports, and the figures for the vast majority of them came from each state’s central health agency, while for some states, the figures came from hospitals and other medical facilities.

Discussion of CDC abortion data involving women’s state of residence, marital status, race, ethnicity, age, abortion history and the number of previous live births excludes the low share of abortions where that information was not supplied. Read the methodology for the CDC’s latest abortion surveillance report , which includes data from 2021, for more details. Previous reports can be found at  stacks.cdc.gov  by entering “abortion surveillance” into the search box.

For the numbers of deaths caused by induced abortions in 1963 and 1965, this analysis looks at reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. In computing those figures, we excluded abortions listed in the report under the categories “spontaneous or unspecified” or as “other.” (“Spontaneous abortion” is another way of referring to miscarriages.)

Guttmacher data in this post comes from national surveys of abortion providers that Guttmacher has conducted 19 times since 1973. Guttmacher compiles its figures after contacting every known provider of abortions – clinics, hospitals and physicians’ offices – in the country. It uses questionnaires and health department data, and it provides estimates for abortion providers that don’t respond to its inquiries. (In 2020, the last year for which it has released data on the number of abortions in the U.S., it used estimates for 12% of abortions.) For most of the 2000s, Guttmacher has conducted these national surveys every three years, each time getting abortion data for the prior two years. For each interim year, Guttmacher has calculated estimates based on trends from its own figures and from other data.

The latest full summary of Guttmacher data came in the institute’s report titled “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2020.” It includes figures for 2020 and 2019 and estimates for 2018. The report includes a methods section.

In addition, this post uses data from StatPearls, an online health care resource, on complications from abortion.

An exact answer is hard to come by. The CDC and the Guttmacher Institute have each tried to measure this for around half a century, but they use different methods and publish different figures.

The last year for which the CDC reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2021. It found there were 625,978 abortions in the District of Columbia and the 46 states with available data that year, up from 597,355 in those states and D.C. in 2020. The corresponding figure for 2019 was 607,720.

The last year for which Guttmacher reported a yearly national total was 2020. It said there were 930,160 abortions that year in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, compared with 916,460 in 2019.

• How the CDC gets its data: It compiles figures that are voluntarily reported by states’ central health agencies, including separate figures for New York City and the District of Columbia. Its latest totals do not include figures from California, Maryland, New Hampshire or New Jersey, which did not report data to the CDC. ( Read the methodology from the latest CDC report .)
• How Guttmacher gets its data: It compiles its figures after contacting every known abortion provider – clinics, hospitals and physicians’ offices – in the country. It uses questionnaires and health department data, then provides estimates for abortion providers that don’t respond. Guttmacher’s figures are higher than the CDC’s in part because they include data (and in some instances, estimates) from all 50 states. ( Read the institute’s latest full report and methodology .)

While the Guttmacher Institute supports abortion rights, its empirical data on abortions in the U.S. has been widely cited by  groups  and  publications  across the political spectrum, including by a  number of those  that  disagree with its positions .

These estimates from Guttmacher and the CDC are results of multiyear efforts to collect data on abortion across the U.S. Last year, Guttmacher also began publishing less precise estimates every few months , based on a much smaller sample of providers.

The figures reported by these organizations include only legal induced abortions conducted by clinics, hospitals or physicians’ offices, or those that make use of abortion pills dispensed from certified facilities such as clinics or physicians’ offices. They do not account for the use of abortion pills that were obtained  outside of clinical settings .

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The annual number of U.S. abortions rose for years after Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973, reaching its highest levels around the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. Since then, abortions have generally decreased at what a CDC analysis called  “a slow yet steady pace.”

Guttmacher says the number of abortions occurring in the U.S. in 2020 was 40% lower than it was in 1991. According to the CDC, the number was 36% lower in 2021 than in 1991, looking just at the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported both of those years.

(The corresponding line graph shows the long-term trend in the number of legal abortions reported by both organizations. To allow for consistent comparisons over time, the CDC figures in the chart have been adjusted to ensure that the same states are counted from one year to the next. Using that approach, the CDC figure for 2021 is 622,108 legal abortions.)

There have been occasional breaks in this long-term pattern of decline – during the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, and then again in the late 2010s. The CDC reported modest 1% and 2% increases in abortions in 2018 and 2019, and then, after a 2% decrease in 2020, a 5% increase in 2021. Guttmacher reported an 8% increase over the three-year period from 2017 to 2020.

As noted above, these figures do not include abortions that use pills obtained outside of clinical settings.

Guttmacher says that in 2020 there were 14.4 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. Its data shows that the rate of abortions among women has generally been declining in the U.S. since 1981, when it reported there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in that age range.

The CDC says that in 2021, there were 11.6 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. (That figure excludes data from California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.) Like Guttmacher’s data, the CDC’s figures also suggest a general decline in the abortion rate over time. In 1980, when the CDC reported on all 50 states and D.C., it said there were 25 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44.

That said, both Guttmacher and the CDC say there were slight increases in the rate of abortions during the late 2010s and early 2020s. Guttmacher says the abortion rate per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 rose from 13.5 in 2017 to 14.4 in 2020. The CDC says it rose from 11.2 per 1,000 in 2017 to 11.4 in 2019, before falling back to 11.1 in 2020 and then rising again to 11.6 in 2021. (The CDC’s figures for those years exclude data from California, D.C., Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.)

The CDC broadly divides abortions into two categories: surgical abortions and medication abortions, which involve pills. Since the Food and Drug Administration first approved abortion pills in 2000, their use has increased over time as a share of abortions nationally, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher.

The majority of abortions in the U.S. now involve pills, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. The CDC says 56% of U.S. abortions in 2021 involved pills, up from 53% in 2020 and 44% in 2019. Its figures for 2021 include the District of Columbia and 44 states that provided this data; its figures for 2020 include D.C. and 44 states (though not all of the same states as in 2021), and its figures for 2019 include D.C. and 45 states.

Guttmacher, which measures this every three years, says 53% of U.S. abortions involved pills in 2020, up from 39% in 2017.

Two pills commonly used together for medication abortions are mifepristone, which, taken first, blocks hormones that support a pregnancy, and misoprostol, which then causes the uterus to empty. According to the FDA, medication abortions are safe  until 10 weeks into pregnancy.

Surgical abortions conducted  during the first trimester  of pregnancy typically use a suction process, while the relatively few surgical abortions that occur  during the second trimester  of a pregnancy typically use a process called dilation and evacuation, according to the UCLA School of Medicine.

In 2020, there were 1,603 facilities in the U.S. that provided abortions,  according to Guttmacher . This included 807 clinics, 530 hospitals and 266 physicians’ offices.

While clinics make up half of the facilities that provide abortions, they are the sites where the vast majority (96%) of abortions are administered, either through procedures or the distribution of pills, according to Guttmacher’s 2020 data. (This includes 54% of abortions that are administered at specialized abortion clinics and 43% at nonspecialized clinics.) Hospitals made up 33% of the facilities that provided abortions in 2020 but accounted for only 3% of abortions that year, while just 1% of abortions were conducted by physicians’ offices.

Looking just at clinics – that is, the total number of specialized abortion clinics and nonspecialized clinics in the U.S. – Guttmacher found the total virtually unchanged between 2017 (808 clinics) and 2020 (807 clinics). However, there were regional differences. In the Midwest, the number of clinics that provide abortions increased by 11% during those years, and in the West by 6%. The number of clinics  decreased  during those years by 9% in the Northeast and 3% in the South.

The total number of abortion providers has declined dramatically since the 1980s. In 1982, according to Guttmacher, there were 2,908 facilities providing abortions in the U.S., including 789 clinics, 1,405 hospitals and 714 physicians’ offices.

The CDC does not track the number of abortion providers.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that provided abortion and residency information to the CDC in 2021, 10.9% of all abortions were performed on women known to live outside the state where the abortion occurred – slightly higher than the percentage in 2020 (9.7%). That year, D.C. and 46 states (though not the same ones as in 2021) reported abortion and residency data. (The total number of abortions used in these calculations included figures for women with both known and unknown residential status.)

The share of reported abortions performed on women outside their state of residence was much higher before the 1973 Roe decision that stopped states from banning abortion. In 1972, 41% of all abortions in D.C. and the 20 states that provided this information to the CDC that year were performed on women outside their state of residence. In 1973, the corresponding figure was 21% in the District of Columbia and the 41 states that provided this information, and in 1974 it was 11% in D.C. and the 43 states that provided data.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported age data to  the CDC in 2021, the majority of women who had abortions (57%) were in their 20s, while about three-in-ten (31%) were in their 30s. Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 8% of those who had abortions, while women ages 40 to 44 accounted for about 4%.

The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2021 were unmarried (87%), while married women accounted for 13%, according to  the CDC , which had data on this from 37 states.

In the District of Columbia, New York City (but not the rest of New York) and the 31 states that reported racial and ethnic data on abortion to  the CDC , 42% of all women who had abortions in 2021 were non-Hispanic Black, while 30% were non-Hispanic White, 22% were Hispanic and 6% were of other races.

Looking at abortion rates among those ages 15 to 44, there were 28.6 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic Black women in 2021; 12.3 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women; 6.4 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic White women; and 9.2 abortions per 1,000 women of other races, the  CDC reported  from those same 31 states, D.C. and New York City.

For 57% of U.S. women who had induced abortions in 2021, it was the first time they had ever had one,  according to the CDC.  For nearly a quarter (24%), it was their second abortion. For 11% of women who had an abortion that year, it was their third, and for 8% it was their fourth or more. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

Nearly four-in-ten women who had abortions in 2021 (39%) had no previous live births at the time they had an abortion,  according to the CDC . Almost a quarter (24%) of women who had abortions in 2021 had one previous live birth, 20% had two previous live births, 10% had three, and 7% had four or more previous live births. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

The vast majority of abortions occur during the first trimester of a pregnancy. In 2021, 93% of abortions occurred during the first trimester – that is, at or before 13 weeks of gestation,  according to the CDC . An additional 6% occurred between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, and about 1% were performed at 21 weeks or more of gestation. These CDC figures include data from 40 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

About 2% of all abortions in the U.S. involve some type of complication for the woman , according to an article in StatPearls, an online health care resource. “Most complications are considered minor such as pain, bleeding, infection and post-anesthesia complications,” according to the article.

The CDC calculates  case-fatality rates for women from induced abortions – that is, how many women die from abortion-related complications, for every 100,000 legal abortions that occur in the U.S .  The rate was lowest during the most recent period examined by the agency (2013 to 2020), when there were 0.45 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. The case-fatality rate reported by the CDC was highest during the first period examined by the agency (1973 to 1977), when it was 2.09 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. During the five-year periods in between, the figure ranged from 0.52 (from 1993 to 1997) to 0.78 (from 1978 to 1982).

The CDC calculates death rates by five-year and seven-year periods because of year-to-year fluctuation in the numbers and due to the relatively low number of women who die from legal induced abortions.

In 2020, the last year for which the CDC has information , six women in the U.S. died due to complications from induced abortions. Four women died in this way in 2019, two in 2018, and three in 2017. (These deaths all followed legal abortions.) Since 1990, the annual number of deaths among women due to legal induced abortion has ranged from two to 12.

The annual number of reported deaths from induced abortions (legal and illegal) tended to be higher in the 1980s, when it ranged from nine to 16, and from 1972 to 1979, when it ranged from 13 to 63. One driver of the decline was the drop in deaths from illegal abortions. There were 39 deaths from illegal abortions in 1972, the last full year before Roe v. Wade. The total fell to 19 in 1973 and to single digits or zero every year after that. (The number of deaths from legal abortions has also declined since then, though with some slight variation over time.)

The number of deaths from induced abortions was considerably higher in the 1960s than afterward. For instance, there were 119 deaths from induced abortions in  1963  and 99 in  1965 , according to reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC is a division of Health and Human Services.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 27, 2022, and first updated June 24, 2022.

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Key facts about the abortion debate in America

Public opinion on abortion, three-in-ten or more democrats and republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion, partisanship a bigger factor than geography in views of abortion access locally, do state laws on abortion reflect public opinion, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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