Document Type : Research/Original/Regular

Authors

• sepideh akbari ¹
• mehrangiz shoaa kazemi ²

¹ Department of Women study, Faculty of Economics & Social Sciences, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.

² Associate Professor, Department of Women and Family Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, Alzahra University, Iran, Tehran

Abstract

Population and its changes have long been one of the most important and vital issues of a country. According to the latest data from the Statistics Center, the fertility rate has reached 1.7, which means less than the replacement level, which shows that we are facing the challenge of population decline. Changes in women's lifestyles and attitudes are one of the most important factors affecting the issue of fertility. In this study, the challenges of fertility in women with three children were investigated. The aim of this study was to find the motivating factors for fertility. The research was qualitative and phenomenological. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 mothers aged 26-42 years, who had three or more children and were selected by snowball sampling method. According to the analysis of the findings, three main categories of barriers to fertility, motivating factors for fertility and expectations to facilitate fertility and 10 sub-categories and more than 100 concepts were obtained. In general, it can be concluded that people have large numbers of children according to their religious beliefs, and in this way, the material and spiritual support received from both families can be a helpful factor. Also, the accompanying help of the wife in household chores and caring for the children to the mother was an important and effective issue.

Highlights

The population crisis is currently one of the main challenges in the country. Given that women play an essential role in changes in fertility rates, the study focuses on their challenges with fertility issues. Therefore, in this study, women with three or more children in Tehran concerned about continuing their education were studied to explore the issues affecting childbearing and the motivating factors. The extracted categories were classified as obstacles to childbearing, motivating factors for childbearing, and expectations to facilitate childbearing. The sub-categories of barriers to having children were the cultural view of the society, the mother’s medical condition, economic issues, and governance policies. The economy was one of the most important factors that concerned women and their families and posed obstacles. They anticipated that the government would take action in this area and provide assistance to families with a large number of children, which is partly consistent with the findings of Abdullahi and Farjadi (2015), Daliri (2017), Mazinani and Mohamadian (2022). It was consistent with one of Rafii Moghadam and Ashtiani’s (2019) research findings that the economic and social middle class had a larger desire to have children, as the majority of the participants in the interviews were families from this class. Therefore, it cannot be argued that economic factors were the primary influence on these families’ reproductive decisions because those interviewed were persons who, according to themselves, have three or more children while having a moderate or low salary and rented home. They expressed a wish to have additional children. In these instances, it can be claimed that economic theories of fertility were relatively inadequate.

Motivational factors for childbearing that were extracted according to interviews were religious beliefs, family support, economic satisfaction, and maternal priority. Religious beliefs were one of the most influential factors in encouraging families to have children; this finding was consistent with the results of Modiri research (2017) and Rezvani et al. (2020), which indicated that beliefs cause a positive attitude towards childbearing and increased childbearing. Most women talked about the support of those around them, such as their families, mothers, and spouses. Their spouses, who often had higher education, had a transcendent view of the division of domestic work and assisted their spouses in various housekeeping and parenting tasks as far as they could afford. The women also said there was a good relationship between their children and their fathers, which made them content. It can be said that this effect of a father’s participation in childbearing is consistent with the results of research by Razeghi Nasrabad et al. (2021) and Esther and Profeta (2020) on its positive effect on childbearing and the theory of gender equality.

The findings on the positive impact of family support on childcare are also similar to that of Wang and Zhao (2021) in China. Motherhood was a priority for the interviewees, and they had a positive view of their traditional duty as a mother and a wife at home. They also viewed doing their homework as their duty and viewed it as a factor in encouraging childbearing, which was consistent with the findings of Chamani et al. (2016), who believed that the loss of traditional female identity was a factor in reducing childbearing. This study’s interviews were conducted during the outbreak of Covid 19 disease, which, because of limits on travel and face-to-face visits, prevented the opinions from being viewed in person and, to some extent, diminished the quality of the research. The time limitation allowed us to focus exclusively on Tehran women with three or more children. In addition, according to the snowball sampling method, the selected individuals were generally on the same ideological spectrum, which was one of the research’s weaknesses. In light of the limitations of this study, it is recommended that the entire country’s statistical population of women with three or more children be investigated and that quantitative research be used to achieve generalizable conclusions. In this study, none of the economic theories of fertility could adequately explain the findings. There is a need for scholars to examine all facets of financial concerns and give particular attention to other factors, such as religious and cultural issues.

Keywords

• fertility
• motivational factors
• phenomenology
• strategy
• women

20.1001.1.23452692.1401.10.4.2.7

Main Subjects

• Woman and family