Ideal-family-size and Sex-composition Preferences among Wives and Husbands in Nepal

1996 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Stash

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 749-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEFFREY EDMEADES ◽  
ROHINI PANDE ◽  
KERRY MACQUARRIE ◽  
TINA FALLE ◽  
ANJU MALHOTRA

SummaryThis article examines how the sex composition of women's current children at the start of a pregnancy interval influences both fertility desires and the full range of reproductive actions women may take to realize them, including temporary contraception, abortion and sterilization, in Madhya Pradesh, India, where popular notions of ideal family size and sex composition are dominated by son preference. The analysis is conducted using a dataset of 9127 individual pregnancy intervals from a 2002 statewide representative survey of 2444 women aged 15–39 with at least one child. The results indicate that women's preferences go beyond a singular preference for male children, with the preferred composition of children being two boys and one girl. Women with this composition are 90% less likely to report having wanted another pregnancy (OR 0.097, p<0.01) relative to those with two girls. These preferences have significant implications for reproductive actions. While sex composition has no statistically significant effect on the use of temporary contraception, those with the preferred sex composition are twice as likely to attempt abortion (OR 2.436, p<0.01) and twelve times more likely to be sterilized (OR 12.297, p<0.01) relative to those with two girls only.



2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. WHITE ◽  
C. HALL ◽  
B. WOLFF

Summary.A characteristic of African pre-transitional fertility regimes is large ideal family size. This has been used to support claims of cultural entrenchment of high fertility. Yet in Kenya fertility rates have fallen. In this paper this fall is explored in relation to trends in fertility norms and attitudes using four sequential cross-sectional surveys spanning the fertility transition in Kenya (1978, 1984, 1989 and 1998). The most rapid fall in the reported ideal family size occurred between 1984 and 1989, whilst the most rapid fall in the total fertility rate occurred 5 to 10 years later, between 1989 and 1998. Thus these data, spanning the fertility transition in Kenya, support the traditional demographic model that demand for fertility limitation drives fertility decline. These data also suggest that the decline in fertility norms over time was partly a period effect, as the reported ideal family size was seen to fall simultaneously in all age cohorts, and partly a cohort effect, as older age cohorts reporting higher ideal family sizes were replaced by younger cohorts reporting lower ideal family sizes. These data also suggest that a new fertility norm of four children may have developed by 1989 and continued until 1998. This is consistent with, and perhaps could have been used to predict, the stall in the Kenyan fertility decline after 1998.



PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. e0233634
Author(s):  
Raisul Akram ◽  
Abdur Razzaque Sarker ◽  
Nurnabi Sheikh ◽  
Nausad Ali ◽  
MGN Mozumder ◽  
...  


1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
William K. A. Agyei

SummaryA summary of 298 male and 358 female respondents in the Lae urban area of Papua New Guinea in 1981 revealed a relatively high level of contraceptive awareness, but the level of contraceptive use is low. However, the overall current usages of non-traditional methods for the wives of the male and for the female respondents are 34–2% and 37% respectively. The male and the female respondents have the same views on the ideal family size—approximately three children.



Demography ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Blake


1980 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 397 ◽  
Author(s):  
William V. D'Antonio ◽  
Steven Stack


1980 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Wilson-Davis

SummarySummary From a survey conducted in the Irish Republic, data on ideal family size are given. Irish wives have high family size preferences, the overall mean ideal family size being 4.3 children. The Irish data are compared with American and western European; they show that the ideals of wives in Ireland are significantly higher than in these other countries. The concept of ideal family size appears to possess validity in its own right, and is not solely a rationalization of actual fertility experience.



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