Factors Related to Childbearing Willingness in the Women Attending the Health Centers in Arak, Iran (2019)

Background & Aims: Childbearing is one of the most important components of population science and is more important than other demographic phenomena such as death and migration. Therefore, population policies in most countries are mainly focused on reducing or increasing fertility. Nowadays, we are facing a decrease in the tendency to have children in Iran, so that the total fertility rate (TFR) has decreased to 6.5 since mid-1978 and reached replacement level fertility in 1999 and is expected to decrease to 1.13% during 2020 - 2024. According to the Low Population Growth Scenario released by the United Nations in 2010, if Iran continues replacement level fertility and has no plan to balance it, its population will reach 31 million in the next 80 years, and 47 percent will be the elderly over 60 years. These statistics and reports have caused serious concerns for the authorities, and the Supreme Leader of Iran has mentioned this issue several times and called for serious planning and legislation to get out of this situation. This has made population growth policies one of the priorities of the government. Meanwhile, according to previous researches, Markazi province is ranked as the third city in terms of the low desire of women to have children. This study aimed to determine the factors related to childbearing willingness in 18-45 -year old women referring to Arak health centers in 2019. Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 255 women aged 18-45 years, in 2019. The women were unwilling to have children. Data were collected from these women referring to 10 health centers in Arak who were selected through cluster sampling. Sampling was performed in January 2019. The data were collected through a questionnaire and included demographic information and variables related to childbearing willingness taken from Piltan et al.' questionnaire (2015) which included 78 items on religious beliefs (21 items), economic status (15 items), social participation (14 items), marital satisfaction (6 items), childbearing problems (7 extracurricular activities such as education, employment, and social activities while caring for their children, and on the other hand, the tendency to have children may increase by reducing the problems of childbearing. One of the limitations of the present study was that self-report of marital satisfaction and economic status may have affected the accuracy of the results, which was beyond the control of the researcher.