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Abstract

Qualitative study which explores the decision-making process in reproduction. This article describes the context to decide reproduction.  Seventeen men and 23 women, between 20 and 35 years old from different social strata and educational levels, with over one year of couple relationship were interviewed. This study is methodologically based on grounded theory and symbolic interactionism. The findings show different meanings of reproduction and interpretation of the principles of gender which guide the decisions regarding offspring.  When a couple understands reproduction as an end, they decide to prepare themselves and to plan the number of children and the moment of their arrival.  Their decisions are shared and concerted, and guided by their life plans. When they take reproduction as a means to achieve individual purposes, such as, sexual pleasure or care for the male, and affective, economic and emotional stability as well as certain economic conditions for the female, their decisions are individual but not negotiated. They do not prepare themselves and do not interpret gender principles and make unfair decisions.  They do not worry about reproduction, and consequently, their children appear unexpectedly.  This event becomes a source of conflict between them. 

Introduction

     The discussion and the handling of the reproduction control concept has varied whit the times according to the role socially assigned to women, family, sexuality and reproduction.
     In 1915 the term birth control devices by Margaret Sanger appears as political claim by the feminist and socialist movements aiming towards the autonomy of women and the equality of sexes.¹
     In the centre of that debate is the struggle to allow women to enjoy sex liberated of reproductive constraints. Later, birth control becomes "population growth control" and contraception serves demographic goals. This change points towards malthusian and neomalthusian theories concerned by overpopulation and its impact on economic growth, levels of poverty, the future availability of natural resources  and the political stability of nations.
     Afterwards the term "family planning" appears to signify the control of the reproductive capacity of the couple, the planning of the number of children and the intervals between them, decisions leading to the stability and wellbeing of families and their members. Thus the debate centred in the role of sexuality, the family and the power relations between sexes preferring the small nuclear family model.
     Finally, in 1994 Cairo Conference on Population ² centred the debate in women and in their integral wellbeing and they establishes goals to reduce mortality among women, babies and children recognizing the women's right to health according to the population-development relationship. In that context the sexual and reproductive health concept goes beyond the absence of sickness implying for women the right to have children, to regulate their fertility in secure and effective forms, learning to enjoy sexuality without the fear of an unwanted pregnancy and the contagion of diseases.
     Thus, emphasis is stressed on women because they were during a long period important for having the reproduction of the species, task without the recognition that their lives are not only for childbirth and rearing.
     With the possibility for women to control reproduction the number of children per family diminished from 4.9 in 1965 to 2.8 aproximatively in 1995.³ The biggest decreases have occurred in Oriental Asia (where the number of children diminish from 5.9 to 1.8) and Latin America (where they diminished from 6 to 3).⁴ In 2003 the fecundity rate in developed countries.⁵     
     Between the factors intervening in these rates are: the use of contraceptive methods, that varies according to the development level of the countries. More than 50% of the couples in the world practice a contraceptive method, but it varies from 10% in Africa to 70% in developed countries.⁶ It has been estimated that 150 million women in developing countries want to postpone the birth of new children or to stop having more but do not use contraceptive devices to attain their desires.⁷
     In Colombia fertility diminished from a 3 per 1000 rate in 1995 to 2.6 rate in 2000,⁸ thus reducing the population growth rate from 1.68% in 2000, to a 1.53% rate in 2004.⁹
     In this descent, the knowledge of contraceptives methods by Colombian women is very influential.
     The research about this subject varies between continents and countries. The majority of them focus its interests in the barriers against reproduction control due to cognition,^10,11 religion,^11,12 gender,^13,14 the influence of reproduction in the stability and the couple communication,¹⁵ the role of the media,¹⁰ the health services¹⁶ and the personal motivation for using contraceptives.¹⁷
     Few studies analyze the decision making process and the responsibility between the partners in order to avoid new children.
     Some of the researches ask about the purpose and the member of the couple who takes the responsibility for contraception, but only a few cares about the process followed by couples when they decide to reproduce. As a matter of fact, the aim of the present study is to investigate how couples live the reproduction decision-making process and how are the dynamics between the couple to control reproduction.
     The present article provides a part of the findings and describes the context in which it is decided when and how many children to have.

Methodology

     Since human reproduction is a social phenomenon with specific socio-cultural characteristics it is important to approach it from the qualitative research methods allowing its cultural interpretation.
     Through a dynamic and simultaneous process, data were collected and analysed in order to achieve the active build-up of knowledge between the interrelation of the different phases of the research, enabling the modification and the enrichment of the theory when new observations and findings are added.
     The study was conducted in Medellín and its Metropolitan Area during thirty months. Information was collected through semi structured formal interviews to 17 men and 23 women, between 20 and 35 years, from different social strata, backgrounds and educational levels, living in a couple relationship for more than one year, willing to express their feelings and to communicate freely about the reproductive experience.
     The interviews were conducted like informal conversations permitting to talk openly. The questions were open. This technique was chosen to bring the people near and to allow modification of the questions when the analysis was advancing in order to go deeply and to obtain conceptual build-up.¹⁸
     The persons were approached by posters in universities and health services, by personal contact and by the "snow-ball technique".
     Their participation was ratified by informed consent. Identity reserve was warranted by the assignment of codes for every interview. All the interviews were recorded and transcript. The analysis of the information included open and axial coding. The study attained a conceptual order constituent of advancement towards the understanding of the reproductive world.
     The permanent questioning of the data and the establishment of comparison between them, allowed to identify build-up, related concepts and discover variations, that make categories more dense in terms of its properties and dimensions. It was a process going for concrete to abstract and back to the data.
     As qualitative researchers we were anxious assessing the richness of data and discovering its essence in order to find the significance and the possible interpretation of the different situations the interviewed had lived.
     During the analysis we maintained a close, direct and permanent contact with data to warrant the validity of our findings about human reproduction as a cultural phenomenon.

Results

     Our findings show that "reproduction" is an event with different meanings for couples and accordingly they take decisions about when, and how many children to have and  how to control reproduction. Additionally, these decisions are influenced by gender norms and the state of consolidation of the couple.
     We found that for some couples reproduction is a "goal" while for others it is a "medium". This aspect plays a main role when the moment arrives to decide when and how many children to have and how to prepare for the advent of them, since those are the leading meanings for the behaviour of the couples.
     Some couples understand reproduction as a "goal" when a maturity process of relationship has been lived. Those couples take decisions about descent in a negotiated and concerted way and at the same time they prepare a "family niche" by the creation and consolidation of the economic and affective conditions for their offspring.
     The sense of responsibility towards the family is present in their decisions because they feel "responsibility" for the life and future of their children since having children is a responsible act and they bear in mind that to love them is not enough since they deserve a quality of life leading to adequate personal development. One of the interviewed recalls: "I have to be responsible in the sense that having a baby is more than giving love. It is better to have few able to become professionals or something in life".
     The agreement about when and how many children to have, is taken bearing in mind the personal and conjugal project of life. Accordingly in order to plan the desired number o sons and daughters and the occasion to have them.
     They discuss the future expectations about their careers and prospects and they reach agreements mutually beneficial. This discussion begins before they start a common life. In the words of one of the interviewed: "Yes, we discussed it and we were in accord thinking that two children was all right because she wants to study since I was unable to study".
     At the same time those couples have a flexible interpretation of gender norms, i.e. they traditionally assumed behaviours of men and women, obedient to the meaning of the prescribed male and female roles.
     This interpretation helps the active participation of the woman in these decisions, leading to a feminine decision making. A woman express: "If it were for him we would have other new baby; he asked me to retire the IUD but I do not want to have more family".
     In other couples, there is feminine leadership and masculine assent facing reproductive decisions. "I told him that I wanted to plan since I did not want to have children yet and he accepted". Those women have clarity about when and how many children to have and besides, they have negotiation capacity facing of their partners. They assume an equality position before their partners and they reach agreements in reproductive matters.
     As we said before, they prepare "the family niche" for the arrival of the offspring. This preparation includes the attainment of some affective conditions that have relation with the mutual understanding, cognizance and acceptation and the build-up of affective bonds in the couple. In this sense attention is given there to the development and mantainment of an ambiance where dialogue is the fundamental tool to know each other in order to dismantle barriers in the relationship and to plan together a common life. The build-up of affective bonds is a condition they consider necessary because they are aware that living in couple requires a process of maturity, acceptation and adjustment besides a space for the realization of individual dreams and the enjoyment of the relationship before the children's arrival.
     One of the interviewed women says: "We taught that we had to live a while as a couple despite the fact that we knew well each other through four years of engagement but a prudential rime was necessary since each of us had its way of life before being able to be more close, adjourning the decision to have a baby". Additionally they think "that many things have to evolve before reaching that decision".
     The preparation of the affective niche involves the resolution of economic and habitational aspects and that explains the postponement of children "We were planning to have family later because of laboral and economic reasons and for all those things that come after marriage and then we decided that we should wait for a while before having children".
     We could say that those couples consider that their relationship is an active process to be laboured.¹⁹ Children do not represent for them economic advantage like in times past. On the contrary, children represent the wish to fulfill life, to give it a sense, a wish to grow roots and a happy experience related to the pleasures of the relationship²⁰ and the hope that they will have the professional success that some of the parents did not have.²¹ They are couples tied by close emotional bonds enjoying great intimacy and they are concerned by the rearing of the offspring.¹⁹ In conclusion, reproduction for them is a transcendental aspect in their lives and they only decide it when they feel ready for it.
     Contrariwise when couples understand reproduction as a medium to attain individual aims like the masculine desire to obtain sexual pleasure or cares, or the feminine longing for economic and emotional stability in order to have better living conditions, decisions about when and how many children to have are not negotiated decisions but individual ones. In those couples there is no preparation of the "family niche". They observe a rigid interpretation of the gender norms leading to unequal relationships where domination-subordination forms of power prevail, especially from the masculine over the feminine. In this context the feminine participation is passive and the man decides in those matters and women submit unconditionally to the masculine decisions about when and how many children to have. One woman told us: "He said to me that planning could stain me. He knocked me if I did not do as he pleased. He revised my drawers and if I had "something" he throw it away".
     Those are couples that live together with the interest of fulfilling their individual needs irrespective of the other sharing or not their interests. Some women dream finding a man providing them physical and emotional stability, a provider of support and refuge for their lifes. "Wanting to leave my parents home I looked for an older man that will give me clothes and food. From eleven, I had relations with him only to feel economically safe and to be fed. Then I saw him like a support".
     In that context the couple relationship lacks dialogue even about the simplest day to day things and accordingly, there is no discussion about the number of wanted sons and about the opportunity to have them. This is a live together where each one lives by his own world and therefore the build-up of a common world is not possible. Neither of them knows what the other things about reproduction and conversation is even less possible on the subject: "He never told me about and I never spoke either. We never spoke about. We were man and wife and children coming, coming."
     When offspring is a tool to achieve goals and individual decisions take place, some women have children even if the partner does not want them: "When I became pregnant for the first time he did not want to have the baby. Really, he did not want them but with him I had three". Every one has different reasons to want to have children. For women to have offspring is the way to show love for the partner or to try to have his love. "I am going to find I man loving me and it would be rich to give him a child". "I wanted to have children to be loved".
     From the male point of view the reasons do not have to take into account the needs of the future offspring like dwelling, education and affection. They cheat or submit by force the women. "He knocked me and hid the pills and I could not plan". When they cheat, to ask to have a child is a trap to make the girl to feel she is loved. She then is submitted but they leave without caring for the apparently desired child. "He asked me to have a baby and when I happily got pregnant he left me for good". The testimony shows how there is little responsibility about when and how many children to have. On the contrary it seems that this does not matter, and children then appear like an unexpected event leading to permanent conflict between the couple. Under these circumstances life in common ceases to be agreeable for both and the desire to continue together vanishes. Those people have many marital unions.

Discussion

     One of the results of the flexibilization of the gender norms is related with change in the subordination and domination relationships towards more equalitarian relationships. As a consequence, the feminine empowerment appears enabling them to assume a protagonist role in matters fundamental to them like the reproduction control decisive in the betterment of their living conditions.
     Family planning could be considered the more important fact in the 20th century because it enabled them to take new roles in society.²² For women to decide when, how many and how to have children marks the difference between a life with enhanced possibilities for their affective, cultural and professional development or to continue devoting their major effort to household  cares and to children. According to Giddens,¹⁹ the new technologies impact is always conditioned by social factors and while these technologies generate autonomy facing the body, at the same time they create positive possibilities with anxieties and problems not known before. That has been named "socialization of nature" by sociologists with an expression related to the fact that some phenomena that before were considered "natural" or "nature-given" have now a social character and depend on human decisions.
     The feminine empowerment appears to be decisive by the time when reproductive decisions are to be taken. This empowerment is understood as the process enabling women to increase their capacity to shape their own lives and their environment, evolving in the conscientiousness regarding them, their status and their efficiency in social interactions.
     In those couples were women question themselves, even minimally, about values and attitudes internalized traditionally since childhood,²³ they participate in active manner in decision-making about how many, when and how to control reproduction, because they are convinced that there is equality in the decision. On the contrary, when women accept as natural values related with feminine passivity and submission, decision-making is delegated to the partner. He decides how many, when and if reproductive control is to be accepted.
     In couples understanding reproduction as an end, offspring arrives when they are prepared and feminine empowerment is observed in relation to the body. They take decisions related to sexuality thinking in their wellbeing and security. At the same time they are active and propositive. Autonomy in women is notorious by their critical reflection about the forms that relations of domination, hierarchy and sex power take place at the interior of the couple, giving a new sense to the dynamics exerted by them in those relationships and leading them who appropriate their reproductive potential.
     In the couples considering the reproduction as a medium to fulfil individual aims women show a low appropriation of their bodies and low control of their fecundity. Their partners are responsible for parental planning.
     Those women, despite the fact that they have unwanted pregnancies, are not able to convert those pregnancies in transforming learnings and they do not take the reins of their reproductive potential. In those women we observe low appropriation of their bodies and lives, scarce autonomy in decision-making and scarce resistance to masculine mandates and desires, and accordingly conception and contraception become the permanent source of conflict in women's lives while men generally remain aloof.  

References

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