Reasons behind the intention to stop childbearing: A collective case study among Iranian one-child mothers

Background: The determinants of the intention to stop childbearing tend to differ over time and contexts. This allows the issue of families’ childbearing intentions to continually remain on the research agenda. As societal context and temporal variability will matter for second childbearing intentions, this qualitative study aimed to identify the attributes of the intention to stop childbearing from one-child mothers' perspective.Method: A qualitative instrumental collective case study in Isfahan City, Iran, was used to scrutinize reasons behind the unwillingness to have a second pregnancy. A purposeful sampling with maximum variation was used to select one-child mothers. Until reaching saturation, ۴۸ semi-structured interviews were conducted. Within-case analysis based on an inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.Results: Five themes and ۱۹ subthemes emerged from the data analysis as structural attributes (economic, social, and political conditions), parental attributes (parental (dis)agreements, childrearing troubles, having impatience, being at the inappropriate age for childbearing), husband attributes (having the intention to stop parenting, financially and emotionally non-supportive, and being busy by working), maternal attributes (health-related problems, adverse experience during former pregnancy, being employed, self-compassion, the fear of parity progression, and being pessimistic), and child attributes (having a naughty child and having the physical or mental distress of the first child).Conclusion: It is concluded that structural, parental, and personal attributes could be categorized as reasons behind mothers' preference over stopping at one child. It seems that fertility behavior policies should consider attributes related to fertility intention, precisely reasons discouraging mothers to have a second pregnancy and from second parity progression.

کلیدواژه ها:

Key words: Intention ، Mothers ، Qualitative research ، Second child ، Parity