Factors Affecting the Demand for a Third Child Among Iranian Women
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Factors Affecting the Demand for a Third Child among Iranian Women Arezoo Bagheri (PhD), Mahsa Saadati (PhD)* Assistant professor, National Population Studies, Comprehensive Management Institute, Tehran, Iran A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article type: Background & aim: Demands for more children have substantial effects on Original article couple’s fertility behaviors. The ideal number of children for most Iranian’s family is two, so that it is reasonable to study which factors determine women’s decision Article History: to have a third child. The main aim of this study was to examine factors affecting Received: 24-Jul-2017 the demand for a third child (DTC). Accepted: 06-Aug-2017 Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 6231 Iranian married women from all provinces during autumn 2014. Participants in the study were Key words: selected by multistage stratified sampling method. A structured questionnaire was Fertility behavior employed to collect the related data. Finally, the analysis included 2272 DTC Fertility determinants questionnaires for women with two children by applying a classification tree Child model. Decision tree Results: In this study, 50.7% of women with two children had no desire for having Women the third child, out of whom 71.1% (79) were living in the provinces with total fertility rate (TFR) less than 2 and in urban areas, respectively. Most of them with the educational level of diploma or lower (78.2%) had a negative opinion about having the third child (36.1%). Based on the classification and regression tree algorithm, women who were interested in having their third child in provinces with TFR more than 2 included rural women, urban women with positive opinion toward childbearing, and those with educational level of secondary school. However, women who were keen on having their third child in provinces with TFR less than 2 consisted of urban women aged 30-49 with educational level of high school or lower, those younger than 30 years with positive opinion who married in their 20-29, rural women aged less than 30, and rural women aged 30-49 with positive opinion who married in their 20-39. Conclusion: Women’s place of residence and opinion toward childbearing had important effects on their DTC. However, women’s educational level as well as their age and marriage age could affect their DTC in provinces with TFR less than 2 compared to other provinces. Please cite this paper as: Bagheri A, Saadati M. Factors Affecting the Demand for a Third Child among Iranian Women. Journal of Midwifery and Reproductive Health. 2019; 7(1): 1543-1550. DOI: 10.22038/jmrh.2018.25186.1275 Introduction Fertility decline has occurred in Iran since Iran shows that although family planning the second half of the 1980’s, which has changed programs have been effective in accelerating the the perceptions and desires of Iranian families dramatic decline in the fertility rate, fertility toward childbearing. Accordingly, Iran is now behaviors should always be considered in the settled among the low-fertility countries (1). In analysis of fertility trends (3). It is worth 1986, average fertility rate was six per mentioning that fertility and childbearing reproductive woman today. However, average motivations, as the main determinants of the woman has fewer than two children today, demand for childbearing, play important roles in which is less than the required replacement fertility-related theories (4-11). Childbearing level fertility level (2). The fertility transition in desires (CD) and ideal number of children (INC) * Corresponding author: Mahsa Saadati, Assistant professor, National Population Studies, Comprehensive Management Institute, Tehran, Iran. Tel: +989126332568; Email: [email protected], [email protected] Bagheri A and Saadati M. JMRH Demand for Third Child in Iranian Women are two most important childbearing preference for a third child (DTC) though it could be one of dimensions (6, 10). the influential factors for total fertility rate The INC has become an interesting issue (TFR) increscent in Iranians’ families. Most of for many researchers who studied factors researchers modeled tendency to have more influencing the fertility behavior of Iranian children by logistic regression (19-20, 24). families (12-15). The study conducted by However, using classification trees is more Bagheri et al. (2014) indicated that factors, applicable and also their interpretations are including age, job status, marriage age, and easier than logistic regression (22, 23). educational level, affect the INC of Iranian Therefore, the main objective of this study is to women within the age range of 15-49 years analyze factors affecting DTC by applying a (13). Tavousi et al. (2015) investigated the classification tree approach. reasons for willingness and unwillingness of childbearing in Tehran (16). Abbasi-Shavazi Materials and Methods and khajesalehi (2013) also studied the This cross-sectional survey was conducted tendency of childbearing among women living on 6231 married women in 31 provinces of Iran, in Sirjan by considering some demographic and during autumn 2014 using a structured social factors (17). Hossaini and Baigi (2014) questionnaire (2). The study population studied the desire of married women in consisted of married women referring to health Hamedan Province to have a second child in center for vaccinating their children in all terms of some demographic and behavioral provinces of Iran. Women who disagreed to factors (18). Hejazi (2014) investigated the complete the questionnaire were excluded. The factors affecting employed women’s desire to questionnaire, named childbearing attitudes and have a second child in Isfahan Province (19). its social, economic and cultural factors, A Sociological study conducted by Pilton included 38 questions addressing demographic, and Rahmanian (2015) addressed factors socio-economic, and childbearing attitudes. The influencing the childbearing tendency of validity of questionnaire was confirmed by 10 married women in the age range of 20-45 years demographers and its reliability was 0.82 for in Jahrom city. The findings showed that gender each dimensions based on Cronbach’s alpha. socialization, parenting problems, social Samples size was calculated by Cochran formula participation, access to food, and religiosity had to gain 95% of confidence level to analyze data. significant relationships with the desire of The samples were selected by multi-stage childbearing (20). stratified random sampling method. Several surveys have revealed a gap between In the first stage, 31 provinces were chosen. childbearing desires and actual births in low- Later in the second stage, 3 cities in each fertility settings; the average number of desired provinces were selected based on their size and children tends to be higher than the actual distribution of population through probability number of children in families (21). Since the proportional to size sampling method (2). In current low level of fertility is mainly caused by order to conduct this study there was no need couple’s tendency to stop reproduction after for ethics approval since there was no their second birth, much of the discrepancy intervention or treatment in this survey, and the between the desired and actual births can be aim of the study was explained to the associated with the absence of third and higher- respondents before interviewing them. parity births (21). This study investigated 2272 women with 2 To the best knowledge of the researchers, children who had the desire for more children previous studies on third births have through classification and regression tree overwhelmingly emphasized the relationship (CART) algorithm. The DTC of these women between women’s educational attainment and were assessed by a question asking “considering labor force participation with the third birth the two children you already have, do you want (22, 23), while other determinants have been to have another child?” given less attention. Moreover, there is no study The CART algorithm is a non-parametric that consider influential factors on the demand statistical methodology developed for analyzing 1544 J Midwifery Reprod Health. 2019; 7(1):1543-1550. Demand for Third Child in Iranian Women JMRH Bagheri A and Saadati M. classification issues. If the dependent variable 1.7≤TFR≤2, 2.1≤TFR≤2.4, and 2.5≤TFR. Data is categorical, CART algorithm produces a analysis was performed using the SPSS software classification tree and when the dependent (version 22). P-value less than 0.05 was variable is continuous, it produces a regression considered statistically significant. tree (25). This algorithm is robust against outliers and collinearities, and can model both Results categorical and continuous variables, including According to the results of descriptive missing data, detect interactions and can be statistics, 50.7% of women with two children considered as an exploratory analysis (25). had no desire for having a third child, 79% of As different studies highlighted the effective whom were living in the provinces with TFR less role of the developmental level of different than 2 and 71.1% of them were in urban areas. provinces in fertility; the underestimation of the Almost 92% of these women were 20-39 years differences among provinces in fertility analysis and 95.2% of them were married in their 10-29 could prevent the achievement of accurate years. Most of them had negative opinion about results (26-28). Accordingly, we divided the having a third child (36.1%) and their regions under study into four provincial classes educational level was diploma or less (78.2%). based on their TFR to obtain a more precise Table 1 presents the results of DTC among analysis of the data. These classes were women with two children analyzed in terms of constructed according to the study conducted by the studied variables. Abbasi-Shavazi and Asgari-Nadushan (2013), According to the results, the investigated which categorized provinces in Iran during the variables had significant effects on DTC, except period of 2009-2011 based on their TFR (26).