The measurement and prevalence of an ideational model of family and economic development in Nepal

Abstract

Developmental idealism (DI) is a system of beliefs and values that endorses modern societies and families and sees them as occurring together, with modern families as causes and consequences of societal development. This study was motivated by the belief that the population of Nepal has absorbed these ideas and that the ideas affect their family behaviour. We use data collected in Nepal in 2003 to show that Nepalis discuss ideas about development and its relationship to family life and that DI has been widely accepted. It is related in predictable ways to education, paid employment, rural–urban residence, and mass media exposure. Although it would be useful to know its influence on demographic decision-making and behaviour, we cannot evaluate this with our one-time cross-sectional survey. Our data and theory suggest that this influence may be substantial.

Keywords:

• family
• fertility
• marriage
• gender
• developmental idealism
• Nepal

Notes

1. Arland Thornton is at the Population Studies Center, Survey Research Center, and Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, 426 Thompsin Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. Dirgha J. Ghimire is at the Population Studies Center, University of Michigan. Dr Ghimire is also Director of the Institute for Social and Environmental Research, which collected the data used in this study. Colter Mitchell is at the Center for Research on Child Wellbeing and the Office of Population Research, Princeton University.This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R37-HD-039425 and R01-HD-054847) and the Population Studies Center of the University of Michigan. We appreciate the staff of the Institute for Social and Environmental Research in Nepal for their work in the collection and processing of the data. Also appreciated are the Nepali respondents who provided the data for this research. We thank Judy Baughn and Susan Clemmer for administrative support and preparation of the manuscript.