Women’s attitude towards Family Planning : A Study of inconsistency between attitude and behavior

Abstract

In the last few decades India has made significant progress in creating awareness of family planning among people. It is a burning issue of modern society which is hyped more but practiced little.  So the present study aims at exploring the latent cause of inconsistency existing between women’s attitude and behavior towards family planning. A purposive sample  of 110  females (Group I, n=55, pregnant women; Group 2, n=55 non-pregnant women) in the age group of 21 to 38 years both literate and illiterate, employed-unemployed, already having two living children, was drawn from the rural and urban areas of Rohtak district of Haryana, India. Three subgroups in each Group with different sex composition of children (i.e. male-female; female-female; male-male) were studied. Women’s attitude was measured by using “Attitude Scale towards Family Planning” by M.A. Hakim and Yashvir Singh. Results indicate though women are well aware about family planning yet its implementation is of low magnitude, thus emphasizing the inconsistency between their attitude and behavior towards family planning. Son preference appears to be the primary cause of this inconsistency. The need for change in traditional values is discussed.