A Short Measure of Childbearing Motivations: Development and Psychometric Evaluation in Polish Samples of Adults and Adolescents

Abstract

Childbearing motivations are trait-like dispositions to feel, think, and act in a certain way in response to various aspects of parenthood. They shape human desire to have a child and underpin the decision about becoming a parent. A self-report tool to measure positive and negative childbearing motivations with their specific dimensions—the Childbearing Questionnaire (CBQ)—was developed in the US and has gained popularity over the past few decades as an increasing number of individuals choose not to have children. In the current article we present two studies, in which we developed and psychometrically validated a short version of the CBQ (The Childbearing Questionnaire-Short Form; CBQ-SF). In Study 1, we developed the CBQ-SF and verified its psychometric properties using a sample of 939 childless adults (25–44 years old). In Study 2, we cross-validated the CBQ-SF on a sample of 1803 childless adolescents aged from 18 to 20. Overall, our findings demonstrated that the CBQ-SF is a psychometrically sound instrument for comprehensively assessing childbearing motivations across different developmental periods (from late adolescence to middle adulthood). Most notably, our short measure preserves the multidimensionality of childbearing motivations and allows individuals’ motivational profiles for parenthood to be identified. Future research directions and practical implications are discussed.