Reproductive Behaviors of Women belonging to Patterns of Marriage: A Sequential Explanatory Mixed Method Design

Background and Aim : Nowadays, nearly half of the world population lives in societies with low fertilityor the below-replacement fertility. This potentially grounds the critical situation of reduction in theworkforce and causes the aging of population due to an overall increase in life expectancy and standard ofliving. Hence, population and its transitions has become a topic of intense debate in the policy-makingprocesses in both the developed and developing countries. Based on previous studies, how people formtheir marriages or patterns of marriage is amongst influencing factors which potentially affect theirreproductive practices. This study examined women s reproductive behaviours by the various patterns ofmarriage in Babol city.Methods : This study was an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, the follow-up explanationsvariant model, with two strands. In the first phase, after getting a permission from the ethics committee ofTehran University of Medical Sciences, a cross-sectional quantitative study was done using a clustersampling strategy on 850 married women 15-49 years old living in Babol city, Iran. Before sampling, anexpert panels was done to assess marriage patterns in Iran, and then the psychometric evaluation ofquestionnaire were examined. After analyzing the quantitative stage data, the second stage, the qualitativepart, was designed to explain the perception of married women with one child. Qualitative data werecollected through personal interviews with the women were who participated in quantitative phase that hadsingle child and did not plan to become pregnant in the future. Finally, the interpretation of the one-childreproductive behavior, using qualitative data was presented.Results : The findings of the quantitative study show that there is three patterns of marriage in Babol:traditional, Modern and mixed and reproductive behaviors does not show differences in marriage patterns.As a result, it seems, despite the changes that have occurred in the way of family formation, the shift fromtraditional to modern marriage patterns, there has been a convergence in reproductive behaviors. Soconsider this convergence in demographic planning is important. One of this convergence, is theconvergence in accepting one-child among married women with different patterns. The findings of thequalitative study described in the perception and experience of the one-child women showed that one childin the Baboli women is affected by the media and social patterns that are associated with self precedence.unsecured future and marital conflict, strengthen having only one child. In fact, there are issues that womendespite of uncertainty of the one-child , forced to stay in one-child and trying to make sense of theirlives with only one child. Therefore, the qualitative study also found that participants with differentmarriage patterns, had similar experiences related to the one-child.Conclusion : According to the results of this study, the population policy makers, should take note fertilityproblems of the mothers, to achieve the desired population.

کلیدواژه ها:

Reproductive behaviors ، Marriage patterns ، Single child ، Mixed method study