The Influence of Population Knowledge and Concern on Acceptable Family Sizes and Expected Family Size

• Main Author: Hugo, Nancy Ross
• Format: Others
• Published: VCU Scholars Compass 1976
• Subjects: Sociology
• Online Access: http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/5089; http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6171&context=etd

This study focused on the influence of population knowledge and population concern on acceptable family sizes and expected family size. Analysis of the responses of 212 students in Introductory Sociology classes to a questionnaire survey revealed that the greater the student's population knowledge, the greater the degree of concern over population growth. Furthermore, the study revealed a stronger relationship between general knowledge of population processes and population concern than between specific knowledge of population sizes and growth rates and population concern. Analysis of the relationship between population concern and acceptable family sizes revealed that the greater the degree of concern over population growth, the greater the disapproval of large families and the approval of small families and childlessness. Programs designed to create concern over population problems through information-giving may, then, have implications for the development of new family size norms. A negative relationship was found between population concern and expected family size, indicating that the greater the degree of concern over population growth, the smaller the expected family size. In addition, the relationship between population concern and expected family size was found to be stronger among those students who located responsibility for population growth within their own group than among those students who located responsibility for population growth within some other racial, income, or religious group.