A study of the relationship between wives' developmental value-orientation and their fertility

Abstract

The purposes of this study were (1) to assess the developmental value orientation (future, mastery over nature, individualism and doing) of wives and their relation to the number of pregnancies and (2) to find out if wives from different (a) type of communities (b) age group (c) socio-economic status (d) educational levels (e) family planning practices differ in their developmental value orientation. It is assumed that the developmental value-orientation, including future, mastery over nature, individualism and doing value- orientations, is related to fertility behavior, though the magnitudes of the relationships are not very high. While value- orientation as the general-most and the center-most psychological factors serve pervasively as motivators of behavior in many different areas, they also act as partial determinants of fertility behavior. The coverage of the problem was quite extensive, hence the need for a team research approach in the study. There were eight researchers on the team: three were masteral students and five were teacher-researchers. The gathering of data was done cooperatively by the three masteral students and processing was done manually and by computer. The work of the team was coordinated by the Research Center, Central Philippine University, The women were asked to react to statements that aimed to get their developmental value-orientation of the future, mastery over nature individualism and doing. These reactions were scored. The assumption is that the higher these scores are, the more favorable the developmental value-orientation is to family planning.