Child-Bearing Attitudes in Croatia: A Country Passing through the Modernization Process

Abstract

For the last several decades, the number of newborn children has been steadily decreasing in many societies, but the drop has been especially pronounced in Central and Eastern European countries. The phenomenon had created a lot of concern among social policy makers but has not stimulated much scientific study. Most of the theories and research on population change are coming from W estern Europe and the United States of American (USA) and the question is how adequately do they explain population changes in the countries experiencing modernization. Sociological literature on Croatian families points to childbearing attitudes as an important predictor of fertility behavior. If childbearing attitudes are determinants of fertility behavior, it is important to research the sources of these attitudes. Therefore, in this study two types of attitudes toward childbearing were defined as dependent variables: (1) attitudes towards children as an obligation to society and (2) attitudes toward children as a life’s joy. Five hundred and five couples participated, selected by a combination of quota and random sampling of the married couples living in the Zagreb metropolitan area. Five groups of predictors were analyzed and five models were obtained to which hierarchical regression analysis was applied. The analysis yielded four distinct groups of participants having different childbearing attitudes: 1. non-commited mothers, 2. mothers commited to dual role, 3. traditional non-commited fathers, and 4. family commited fathers. Relationships between attitudes and fertility behavior are discussed.