The psychological aspects of fertility behavior in women
Published: 1972
Language: eng
Format: computer file
Subjects: Human Fertility; Psychological aspects; Longitudinal studies; Women; Sexual behavior
Description: This longitudinal study examined the attitudes and personal characteristics relevant to reproduction and fertility in women. A total of 967 women from the community of Stanford University who were unmarried, married and childless, or married with one child were interviewed and administered a series of questionnaires in 1972.

The interview schedule was highly structured, consisting primarily of precoded items dealing with both general background and issues related to marriage, reproduction, and contraception. The series of eight questionnaires were administered during the interview, and covered such areas as maternal attitudes, interest in traditional feminine roles, sexual and contraceptive attitudes, sexual and contraceptive knowledge, personal style (an inventory of psychological traits relevant to effective contraceptive use), as well as the Jackson Personality Research Form, a measure of personality dimensions. The husbands or boyfriends of the participants also completed a questionnaire assessing the same attitudes as those in the women's questionnaires.

Follow-up data were collected one, two, and three years after the initial interview session. The first two follow-ups were conducted by telephone. Similar to the initial interviews, the data collected at these times concerned attitudes and behaviors with respect to marriage and fertility (e.g. menstrual history, sexual history, and aspects of the decision-making process involved in marriage and starting a family). The third interview, conducted in 1975, included questions about similar topics and asked about childrearing practices as well. In addition, participants were administered a decision-making questionnaire about the status of their relationship with respect to their decisions about having children.

Computer-accessible data from all waves of the study are available at the Murray Center.
Notes: Sample characteristics: sample size: 501-1000; time: 70s; race: not asked; age: 18-22, 23-29; number of generations: 1; gender: female, male; ses: working, middle.

Data collection methods: design: field study, longitudinal; length of data collection: 3-5 years; measures: questionnaire, interview.

Follow-up possible: no; follow-up available: no.