Pronatalist Culture Research Articles

"My Mother Persuaded Me to Have More Children", Understanding the Influence of Social Network on Fertility Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Introduction: Despite the adoption of an antenatal demographic transition model in sub-Saharan Africa, population growth continues to soar in the region. The reasons for population growth are nebulous and should be approached from different perspectives. Inadequate attention has been paid to how social pressures shape reproductive behavior. Thus, this study examines the association between social networks and fertility behavior in sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design that employed a qualitative method to conduct 28 in-depth interviews among married women. Data was collected in 2023. Thematic analyses were utilized to interpret the results. Results: Parental pressure, the desire for more children, the desire for male children, values placed on children, norms, and pronatalist culture were associated with high fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. Conclusions: Thus, there is a need for more awareness of family planning and contraceptive use in order to reduce fertility in sub-Saharan Africa.

Anjuran Menikah dan Memperbanyak Keturunan Studi Hadis atas Fenomena Childfree di Masyarakat

The Childfree phenomenon is still hotly discussed , especially on Indonesian social media. This phenomenon is quite controversial because in the construction of Indonesian society. Children are a gift and also one of the goals of marriage. Indonesia, which has a pronatalist culture, gives important consideration to Childfree’s views in the country. Thus, this is an interesting thing to explore, namely the study of the childfree phenomenon from a hadith perspective using thematic methods. By conducting this research, it is hoped that the meaning and understanding of hadith related to the childfree phenomenon can be used as a referance for understanding that does not only focus on the legal realm. The results of these findings are that the hadiths related to the theme of childfree, namely the hadith about the recomendation for marriage and increasing offspring, do not directly say that childfree is prohibited and opposed in religion.

Population growth as the elephant in the room: teachers’ perspectives and willingness to incorporate a controversial environmental sustainability issue in their teaching

Although population growth (PG) is acknowledged as a major factor that drives the global environmental crisis, this issue is rarely included in environmental and sustainability education (ESE) because of its controversiality. This mixed-methods study explores the perspectives of Israeli ESE and non-ESE teachers regarding PG as an environmental risk, their willingness to include PG in their teaching, the frequency and foci of including it, the reasons for including or disregarding it, and the factors that predict their inclusion of it. The findings reveal that the deep-rooted pronatalist culture in Israel and a national pronatalist agenda impact the education system. It was found that an academic background in ESE had limited impact on teachers’ perceptions concerning PG or on their willingness to discuss its controversiality in class. Teachers’ attitudes related to PG demonstrated socially, culturally, and politically oriented disavowal justification regarding the negative impacts of rapid PG. The absence of PG from school curricula and the Israeli public discourse have been reported as major reasons for disregarding it in schools. To encourage teachers to incorporate this controversial issue in their teaching, and successfully confront dominant pronatalist cultures, they need ongoing support. Stakeholders in the education system must bring the population debate into schools as part of human efforts to mitigate environmental degradation and as an opportunity to strengthen tolerance among students towards diverse opinions.

IVF in a pro-natalist culture: Experiential accounts of Indian women

IVF in a pro-natalist culture: Experiential accounts of Indian women

‘I feel like I was born for something that my body can’t do’: a qualitative study on women’s bodies within medicalized infertility in Italy

Objective In the context of infertility, women’s bodies have a central physical, psychological, and social role. Medically assisted reproduction (MAR) treatment includes highly intrusive procedures targeting women’s bodies. This study aimed to develop a preliminary understanding of women’s core meanings around their bodies within their experiences of medicalized infertility in Italy. Design 104 Italian women dealing with infertility and MAR treatments answered open-ended questions, which were part of a broader online survey. A reflexive thematic analysis was performed. Results Three themes were identified: (a) the paradox of the body: ‘I feel like I was born for something that my body can’t do’; (b) ‘Something only mothers can do’: meanings attributed to the physical body; (c) Internalized ‘clinical gaze’: medicalized body representations. Conclusions This work provides insights into the meanings assigned to their bodies by Italian women dealing with MAR. This study outlined women’s ambivalence towards their bodies, describing them as ‘fragmented’ into parts and as ‘deposits’ of their reproductive hopes. Results suggest that Italian pronatalist culture may have potential fallouts for women’s gendered sense of self and the integration between their biological and psychosocial body experiences. Study limitations, future research directions, and clinical implications are presented.

End of the line: An exploration into the creation and challenges of infertility poetry

Infertility is an aspect of motherhood that is ‘Other’ and is broadly met with silence by the wider western society and its pronatalist culture. The silence surrounding infertility impacts our individual, mutual and cultural understandings of motherhood, as this silence arises from its taboo nature. Speaking up about any aspect of motherhood that is not typical is still treated as taboo, and the experiences of ‘atypical’ mothers, such as those who have experienced infertility, are still side-lined. The taboo nature of infertility, coupled with the grief and absence that define it, all contribute to the silence that surrounds it. This article is in the form of a lyric essay that combines my own poetry about infertility and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) with a broader critical analysis about the challenges of writing about infertility. I intersperse my own infertility poetry with a close textual analysis of infertility poetry composed by contemporary western women poets, such as Kerry Priest, Gerrie Fellows and Julia Copus. This close reading highlights the poetics employed by these writers that recreate, reformulate and reinvent writing about infertility, and motherhood more broadly. Alongside my own poetry, I include a self-reflection that highlights how my poems challenge and resist the conventional approaches to performing maternity. This self-reflection also details how I utilized poetics to both present and represent the silence and absence of infertility’s ‘non-event’, and give it presence and language.

The Reclamation of Legacy: Journeying Through Grief and Praise as a Childfree, Middle-Aged Woman

What rights to legacy can the childfree woman claim in middle age? Can childfree, middle-aged women embrace waves of loss regarding legacy and family lineage in such a way that adds legitimacy to their life choices and callings, resulting in increased joy and praise around their childfree identities embedded within an ancestral line of mothers? These questions are explored through the author’s reflections on her own journey through grief and loss as a childfree, cisgender, heterosexual woman, which is an identity that is often disenfranchised and pathologized in pronatalist culture. An invitation is offered to revision grief and mourning as hosts to a deeper sense of joy, a robust connection to lineage, and the enrichment of self-identity for childfree women in middle age and beyond.

‘Voluntarily Childless’: An Auto-ethnographic Account of a Man’s Struggles in India

This article is an account of the struggles of a man in a patriarchal cultural context, where the idea of childfree men is despised and regularly confronted. Autoethnography is a method and a means to story-telling not only of the struggles that a man faces but also is a living document of the interactions, relationships, acquaintances and family regarding a choice over voluntary parenthood. The idea of voluntary childless men is a rarity in Indian cultural context of compulsory motherhood, especially in a pronatalist culture. Women’s struggles have been documented but it is rarely that a man’s position is located.

Being a Child in the Pronatalist Culture An Essay on Newspaper Reports of the Years of 1929-1940

This study focuses on the detail of the relationship between children and the politics of the new regime by centering the Republican period pronatalist policies. It can be estimated that a country which has come out of a devastating war, has experienced territorial losses and has subsequently fallen into the clutches of epidemics has faced with serious losses in its human resources. It is inevitable for a society which moves on after being weakened with these losses to continue to the rhythm of the world by recuperating afterwards. The politicians of that period who were aware of that the biggest power needed in the given period is the human resources, have been in a search of different ways for the rectification and strengthening of the wounded Turkish society through population policies at every opportunity. Within the authentic boundaries of the state mechanism, the family and marriage in general and the existence of the child in particular has a determining role. The fact that the identification of the road to the child is encoded through family and marriage has been continuously intersecting the paths of this tripartite mechanism. The fact that the belief towards marriage and family was stronger than ever, has increased the need for pronatalist policies as of that period. This study focuses on the way of handling the issue by the newspapers of the years between 1929 and 1940. It was conducted a content analysis from the titles preferred in the newspaper reports to the language used and the presentation type of the news. It was seen that many reasons including the continuity of the lineage and the safety of the nation in its authentic boundaries, the fear towards that biological losses will cause losses in many other fields, the need for both the quantity and the quality of the people, the desire to avert disinformation in human resources, and the belief towards that development will realize with a dynamic population, are among the precipitating reasons of the Republican period pronatalist policies.

Persevering in Fertility Treatments Despite Failures: Unrealistic Optimism and the Reality of a Pronatalist Culture.

Fertility treatment discontinuation is difficult as it entails accepting childlessness. In most countries, financial limitations provide sufficient justification to terminate treatment. In Israel, unlimited funding enables women to undergo multiple treatment cycles, even when the odds of success are poor, thus providing a context for studying the psychological mechanisms involved when financial constraints are set aside. The study aimed to investigate the contribution of unrealistic optimism to Israeli women's willingness to continue fertility treatments even after repeated failures and to their psychological adjustment, comparing age groups. A longitudinal study of 100 women (ages 31-45) undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment (1-22 previous cycles), who filled in questionnaires assessing their estimates of treatment success (theirs/for same-age patient), estimates received from the physician, intentions to continue treatment, and psychological adjustment. Follow-up was conducted 17(± 4) months later, by phone (n = 71) and/or medical records (n = 90). Most women (57%) reported that they will continue as long as needed till they have a child, 13% did not know, and 25% mentioned a specific plan; 5 did not reply. Women's estimates of treatment success showed vast unrealistic optimism, which was unrelated to their age, history of unsuccessful treatment cycles, or intentions for treatment continuation, yet was related to better psychological adjustment. At follow-up, almost all women who did not conceive were found to have continued treatments. Unrealistic optimism helps women maintain hope and well-being along the demanding journey to (biological) parenthood, where childlessness is highly stigmatized, and contributes to perseverance in treatment, regardless of objective factors.

Women and Infertility in a Pronatalist Culture: Mental Health in the Slums of Mumbai.

BackgroundInfertility is a global problem, with high prevalence in India. As a pronatalist society, infertility is particularly problematic in India, causing stigma, shame, and blame especially for women. Infertility consequences for women include discrimination, social exclusion, and abandonment, putting them at high risk for mental health distress. Furthermore, mental health is highly stigmatized and specialized care is largely unavailable. Despite the cultural importance of childbearing, research on infertility distress and resulting mental health sequelae is lacking, particularly among low-income women. The purpose of this study is to assess mental health, using validated scales, among Mumbai slum-dwelling women with a history of infertility.MethodsWe conducted a mixed-method, cross-sectional study. A focus group discussion with community health workers (n = 7) informed the development of a comprehensive survey. The survey consisted of validated scales whenever possible, in addition to questions pertaining to women’s sociodemographic and reproductive history. After rigorous forward and back translation, the surveys were conducted as face-to-face structured interviews due to low literacy levels and the research naiveté of our respondents. Interviews were conducted by culturally, linguistically, gender-matched, trained research assistants.ResultsMumbai slum-dwelling women of reproductive age suffering from infertility (N = 74) participated. Most (85%) women and their husbands (66%) reported previous infertility testing. Participants had elevated mental health distress (anxiety and depression symptomology) largely explained by general health, length of marriage, and coping strategy employed.ConclusionWomen facing the double stigma of mental health and infertility need innovative programs to address their challenges.

Religious Women's Coping with Infertility: Do Culturally Adapted Religious Coping Strategies Contribute to Well-Being and Health?

Infertility is a source of stress, particularly in pronatalist societies in which a lifestyle without children is viewed as an unacceptable option. The present study examined the relationship between the use of culturally adapted religious coping strategies and emotional adjustment among women coping with fertility problems. This is a cross-sectional correlational study. One hundred and eighty-six religious Israeli women undergoing fertility treatment filled out questionnaires assessing their use of culturally adapted religious coping strategies and emotional adjustment (distress/well-being). A path analysis showed that the culturally adapted religious coping strategies of seeking the support of Rabbis and seeking the support of God had a strong correlation with reduced psychological distress, but not with enhanced psychological well-being. Seeking approval and recognition from the community was correlated with reduced distress and enhanced well-being. However, seeking ties and belonging to the community was correlated with increased psychological distress and reduced psychological well-being. Finally, women without children experienced greater psychological distress than women with children and sought more support of Rabbis and fewer ties with the community. In a pronatalist culture that sanctifies childbirth, infertility is a source of significant distress. Professionals' awareness of the culturally adapted religious coping strategies utilized by their clients may help them conduct culturally sensitive intervention, which may greatly help to enhance emotional adjustment. Future research is recommended to develop instruments that measure culturally adapted strategies and their influence on emotional adjustment over time, in different states of health while comparing different cultures.

Normalization as a Strategy for Maintaining Quality of Life While Coping with Infertility in a Pronatalist Culture.

Infertility could be highly stressful, particularly in a pronatalist culture. We aimed to develop the concept and a measure of normalization (maintaining normal life routines and feeling "normal") as a strategy that could enable women with infertility maintain their quality of life (QoL) while coping with this condition. We tested its associations with women's well-being, distress and QoL in Israel, where being childless is socially unacceptable and highly stigmatized. One-hundred and eighty Israeli women undergoing infertility treatment at a fertility community clinic filled in questionnaires assessing normalization-related coping strategies, QoL, and psychological adjustment (distress, wellbeing). Eight months later, 55 women conceived; 55 women who had not conceived completed a second questionnaire. At baseline, normalization was related to higher QoL and better adjustment. Structural equation modeling showed that QoL was impaired mainly among women who felt different than others, compared, and blamed themselves. Over time, normalization was overall unrelated to conception or to changes in adjustment yet was protective against decrease in well-being among women who already had a child. Infertility is highly stressful in a pronatalist culture like Israel. It requires treatment yet is not disabling. Patients who manage to maintain normal routines and not feel different than other people their age may experience better QoL and psychological adjustment.

Childlessness in Nigeria: perceptions and acceptability

Childlessness has major psychological and social implications for affected persons, especially in settings where fertility is highly valued. While a number of studies have documented how childlessness is perceived in these societies and the multitude of adverse consequences suffered by affected individuals, studies have not made a clear distinction between voluntary and involuntary childlessness in these settings. Using focus-group discussions from three Nigerian communities, this study explores societal perception and acceptance of childlessness in Nigeria, focusing on both voluntary and involuntary childlessness. Findings show that not having children, whether voluntarily or not, contributes to a kind of invisibility and poverty in Nigeria. Regardless of the reason, voluntary childlessness evoked strong negative feelings among discussants. The study also shows the broad definition given to voluntary childlessness in Nigeria as including individuals that are childless because they chose to stay with an infertile partner and also those who could not have biological children and chose not to adopt. Childlessness is not yet embraced in Nigeria, where pronatalist culture is still very strong. However, the study noted a more tolerant attitude to involuntary childlessness, suggesting possible changes in perceptions of the condition. Policy and programme implications of the findings are discussed.

THE USES AND MISUSES OF IN VITRO FERTILIZATION IN ISRAEL: SOME SOCIOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Israeli society has the highest rates of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) intervention in the world, as well as the highest per capita consumption rate of infertility therapy, with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) at its center. This situation is sustained by an unprecedented public health policy, posing hardly any restrictions on the eligibility of Israeli citizens for infertility treatments within the National Health Insurance (NHI) system. Given the health risks as well as the emotional and financial costs involved in the excessive use of IVF, this pattern of regulation and consumption calls for a careful sociological and ethical consideration of its origins and implications. The paper is based on an analysis of key processes and events that took place in the Israeli regulatory and legal arena between 1994 (when the Israeli National Health Insurance Law was enacted) and 2003 (when the last attempt thus far to de-insure IVF was made). Processes and events that took place within that decade include legal actions taken by consumers in matters concerning IVF, court verdicts on IVF usage, parliamentary discussions on IVF regulation and failed attempts to restrict NHI coverage of IVF. We argue that existing policies and utilization patterns of IVF in Israel are embedded within several frameworks: Israel’s pro-natalist culture and “pro-family” values (both of which are contextualized within the Jewish state), a political discourse of demographic threats and rights, organizational changes stemming from the 1994 NHI Law, and the emergence of a “consumer rights” discourse within the public health system. In the concluding section, we discuss the ethical aspects of IVF in Israel, arguing that a reconsideration of priorities in a context of limited economic resources is much needed at this time.

Culture and the aching heart

The symptom of heartache was found to be common in clinical and community studies in the Arabian Gulf countries of Qatar and Kuwait. It symbolized distress in significant interpersonal relationships. The pronatalist culture in these communities assigned to women the monorole of marriage and mothering. Heartache was common in patients who did not fulfil this monorole and in depressed male and female patients. In community studies, heartache was a common symptom in women using contraceptives and in young women with intergenerational conflict or interparental conflict towards liberal vs. traditional attitudes to family relationships, type of marriage and emancipation of women. Studies of illness behaviour towards symptoms of mental ill health in the community revealed ambivalence in the attribution of heartache to physical or psychological factors. Understanding this symptom by medical practitioners is essential for patient management.

Safe to Talk: Abortion Narratives as a Rite of Return

now understand why women have died from abortionsit was the secrecy that killed them. (from personal correspondence with D.M.) Defamiliarizing Assumptions] America's worst-kept secret is its 1.5 million women who annually choose to abort their babies.2 Worst-kept, because everybody knows and everybody is talking about it; secret, because everybody knows and nobody's talking about it. was secretive about it, only telling a very close woman friend of mine from high school. I did not tell the man until after the abortion. I told my boyfriend that I had minor surgery and couldn't have sex for two weeks. I did feel secretive about it at the (from personal correspondence with M.P.)3 did not tell many people about this abortion. I was deeply ashamed to be in this situation for a third time. How could a bright independent woman be in this predicament AGAIN?? I spiraled into a deep depression. I contemplated suicide and engaged in self-destructive behavior. (from personal correspondence with K.C.) was 22 years old, eight-and-a-half years ago. At the time, there didn't seem to be any safe environments for speaking about it. My doctor knew, and my two closest friends. I never told the father, as we weren't in a relationship. I'm not sure if this was a smart thing to do or not, but I went through it by myself. (from personal correspondence with C.J.) filled out an insurance claim just to see if they might pay it, and of course, they didn't. I wish I hadn't filed that claim. I hate knowing that some huge organization knows such personal information about me. I don't feel good about it. I certainly don't feel safety in their knowledge. (from personal correspondence with S.V.) Many women experience abortion without remorse or guilt; indeed, they celebrate it as a motivator to get on with the business of life as usual.4 For others, the subject of this study, (in which I asked women to speak about their abortions in terms of contributing factors to their decision; pregnancy loss; secrecy and silence ; trust; subsequent sexuality, self-esteem; and relationship with the baby's father), an abortion signifies multiple sacrifices. Among them, women cited: a potential child; youthful innocence; parenting or familial fantasy; relationship with the baby's father; trust; and the sense of control or security. These varied responses depend on personally constructed meanings and expectations of loss, death, parenthood, womanhood and pregnancy, (Madden, 1994: 87) and whether the fetus had been considered a child. In the small Idaho ranching community where I grew up there was ah old woman, the matriarch of one of the wealthier ranching families, who had had a number of illegal abortions in addition to several children. When she was dying in the hospital, her last words, whispered to one of the nurses, were `Oh, all those little babies! I'm so sorry. What can I tell them? Will they forgive me?' (from personal correspondence with V.M.) still cry at the thought of the ordeal, but I am still confused as to whether it is grief over the loss or grief over the becoming of what everyone said I would. (from personal correspondence with M.K.) Though a woman may perceive her abortion as an occasion of profound loss, she is deprived of the opportunity to publicly grieve in our high-tech pronatalist culture where death is never an acceptable peri-natal outcome. As a not-mother, the woman who has an abortion is marginalized. Our lives remain untheorized (Morell, 1994: xv). The not-mother is unspeakable, unknowable and uninteresting in a world where sources for gratification are denied women if they are pursued in lieu of children (Morell, 1994: 59), and where feminist culture has not produced alluring images or thinkable identities for the childless (Snitow, 1993: N145). Often, a woman who has an abortion conceals her actions, and may never find a safe venue for mourning. …

Confucianism, Chinese culture, and reproductive behavior

Confucianism is not a religion but plays a religious role in Chinese life and society. The tendency to encourage reproduction exists throughout the Confucian system, including the cosmology, ontology, value system, and ethics, and therefore greatly helps to formulate the strongly pronatalist culture. This analysis examines the impacts of Confucianism on Chinese reproductive behavior, and shows that there is an obvious relationship between China's large population and Confucianism.

The Transnational Politics of Abortion

IN MOST DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, abortion has only recently emerged as a public policy issue. Even in countries that have had active population and family planning programs, influence of traditional pronatalist culture and inherited colonial laws has limited frequency of induced abortion and has discouraged organized efforts to expand availability of services. In recent decades, however, changing social conditions have increasingly challenged traditional norms. Urbanization, increases in female education and labor-force participation, and inadequate contraceptive services in many developing countries have resulted in more unwanted pregnancies than ever before and have led increased numbers of women to seek to terminate their pregnancies, often at severe risk to their lives and health. i Changes have also occurred in political and legal environment. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Turkey are among developing countries where de jure or de facto abortion policies have become subjects of new or renewed conflict in recent years.2 Not all of these conflicts have resulted in legal changes, although some 20 developing countries have revised their abortion laws and regulations since 1980, most of them in direction of expanding indications for abortion (Cook, 1989; Henshaw, 1990). In past, politics of abortion in most developing countries tended to conform to a pattern once characterized by an American political analyst as the mobilization of bias. As he put it, Some issues are organized into politics while others are organized out (Schattschneider, 1960: 71). In effect, when powerful institutions do not consider a change in existing policy (or nonpolicy) as being in their interest, issue in question is unlikely to be addressed. This situation is still true for abortion-related questions in some countries and in some decisionmaking arenas. Yet, as overall political competition increases in many countries, and as previously excluded groups gain access to mass media and assume a greater political role, abortion issues are becoming more visible than they were in past. The pressures for change in official policies or administrative practices come from mul-