Australian Adolescents’ Beliefs about Having Children

Synopsis

Future family size intentions of 147 male and 182 female adolescents attending Catholic high schools on the Darling Downs, Queensland were explored using the following 4 predictor variables: (1) the number of children in the family, (2) Catholic religion, (3) beliefs and social pressures about having children, and (4) sex-role ideology. Males and females differed in the degree and order of importance of these predictors. A large proportion of the variance remained unexplained, and it was suggested that future research include specific varieties of parent-child interactions as intrinsic variables in the motivation for parenthood.

Key Words:

• family size
• birth intentions
• sex-role ideology
• religion
• beliefs and social pressures about having children
• number of children in the family of origin
• sex differences