Consciousness, Rationality and Attitude Structure in Fertility Regimes: A Cognitive Approach to Childbearing

This study aims to offer a cognitive understanding of the fertility transition. In this regard, the changes in fertility behavior from pre-transitional to post-transitional fertility are explained in terms of consciousness, rationality, and attitude structure. To do this, we reviewed theories of fertility decline and their implications for consciousness and rationality as well as cognitive processes in the formation of beliefs and attitudes towards childbearing. The results show that at the final stages of the fertility transition, fertility behavior gradually becomes more conscious and the role of the cognitive element of rationality in the behavior increases. Along with fertility decline to the replacement level, the transition of the value of children and cultural changes increase the conflict between the value of the children and its competing values. Consequently, the structure of attitude towards fertility becomes problematic. The empirical findings of this research, in which 482 married women aged 15 to 39 were surveyed in the city of Tehran, showed that the feeling of ambivalence toward the first and second births (as one of the important properties of the attitude structure) is significantly more than that toward the third or higher-order births.