Socio-economic factors of value of children affecting ideal number of children by gender

Background: Socio-economic factors, following psychological factors, affect the value of children in parents’ view and this value itself could influence Ideal Number of Children (INC), which is one of the most important dimensions of fertility behavior. The aim of the present study was to investigate parents’ INC according to the factors influencing the value of children from the viewpoint of men and women, separately. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, multi-stage stratified sampling method was conducted to collect data from 590 males and 610 females in Tehran province, Iran, using a questionnaire including demographic and attitudinal questions. To describe data, SPSS-17, and to examine the factors influencing INC, path analysis was used in AMOS 22 and Goodness of fitted model was approved using the relative chi-square (χ²/df), Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Adjusted GFI (AGFI), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) indices. Results: Indices of Goodness of fit confirmed the fitted models (χ²/df=2.289, GFI=0.994, AGFI=0.973, and RMSEA=0.047 for males’ model and χ²/df=0.511, GFI=0.989, AGFI=0.994, and RMSEA=0.020 for females’ model). Negative psychological (males’ coefficient=-0.20 and females’ coefficient=-0.17, P 0.001) and positive economic (males’ coefficient=0.11 and females’ coefficient=0.09, P 0.05) factors of children values were both significant on INC based on gender. Moreover, negative social factor (males’ coefficient=-0.26, P 0.05) of value of children was significant on INC only for males. These significant factors had higher impacts on men s INC, as compared with that of women Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, significant factors influencing INC of males and females were negative psychological and positive economic factors of the value of children and the negative social factor of value of children was the only significant factor influencing INC for males.