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Development and Validation of a Fertility Norms Scale in a rural community in Maharashtra, India

Nandita Bhan, Jindal School Of Public Health And Human Development (JSPH), O.P. Jindal Global University
Nicole Johns, Center on Gender Equity and Health, UC San Diego
Sangeeta Chatterji, Center on Gender Equity and Health, UC San Diego
Edwin Thomas, Center on Gender Equity and Health, UC San Diego
Namratha Rao, Center on Gender Equity and Health, UC San Diego
Mohan Ghule, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH) (ICMR)
Anita Raj, University of California, San Diego

Family planning programs emphasize on measuring contraceptive behaviors, but often neglect the motivations and expectations around fertility driving contraceptive use. We developed a scale to measure fertility norms and examined its reliability and validity in a rural community in Maharashtra, India. Data were analyzed from 1025 married women from a cross-sectional survey in the Pune district. A 10-item Fertility Norms Scale (FNS) was developed to capture internalized expectations and pressures around childbearing among newly married couples based on previous qualitative work in the community and guidance from experts. We conducted exploratory factor analyses to understand factor structure and assess internal consistency reliability and construct validity. Women participants were relatively young, had married early with high proportion reporting up to 10 years of schooling, and of Hindu religion and marginalized caste. Overall a for the FNS was 0.71, with EFA revealing three factors (a=0.6, 0.69 and 0.66) despite strong evidence of unidimensionality. FNS was associated with greater likelihood of marriage before 18, suicidal ideation and fertility intentions demonstrating construct (convergent) validity. FNS can be an important instrument to understand motivations around fertility, demonstrates good reliability and internal validity but needs to be tested in more contexts for greater external validity.

Keywords: Family planning and contraception, Gender, Methodology

See extended abstract.

Presented in Session 138. Fertility in India: Present and Prospect