Pushing away from their own nation? South Korean women married to migrant husbands from developing countries

This study expands a currently limited body of knowledge on South Korean women married to migrant husbands from developing countries living in South Korea. It presents the findings obtained from a series of semi-structured interviews in order to see how marriage to a migrant husband from a developing country impacts a woman’s sense of belonging over the course of her married life. These women experienced a significant change in status within their own ethnic community, which eventually impacted their hope that their children will forge a sense of transnational belonging or find a sense of belonging within a religious community.     

Factors Affecting Women's Autonomous Decision Making In Research Participation Amongst Yoruba Women Of Western Nigeria

Research is a global enterprise requiring participation of both genders for generalizable knowledge; advancement of science and evidence based medical treatment. Participation of women in research is necessary to reduce the current bias that most empirical evidence is obtained from studies with men to inform health care and related policy interventions. Various factors are assumed to limit autonomy amongst the Yoruba women of western Nigeria. This paper seeks to explore the experience and understanding of autonomy by the Yoruba women in relation to research participation. Focus is on factors that affect women's autonomous decision making in research participation. An exploratory qualitative approach comprising four focus group discussions, 42 in‐depth interviews and 14 key informant interviews was used. The study permits a significant amount of triangulation, as opinions of husbands and religious leaders are also explored. Interviews and discussions were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis was employed for data analysis. Findings show that concepts of autonomy varied amongst the Yoruba women. Patriarchy, religion and culture are conceived to have negative impact on the autonomy of women in respect to research participation. Among the important findings are: 1) male dominance is strongly emphasized by religious leaders who should teach equality, 2) while men feel that by making decisions for women, they are protecting them, the women on the other hand see this protection as a way of limiting their autonomy. We recommend further studies to develop culturally appropriate and workable recruitment methods to increase women's participation in research.     

Determinants of birth intervals in Sudan

Using individual birth history data from the Sudan Fertility Survey, 1979, parity-related differences in fertility are demonstrated, as well as differences between socioeconomic groups. Rural women, women with no education and those married to uneducated husbands show rapid parity progression and its cumulative effects on fertility which are consistent over all birth intervals. Urban women, women with some education and those married to educated husbands, however, go rapidly through their second and third birth intervals and then more slowly at higher parities. A limitation of the study was the inability to control fully for the effects of breast-feeding and contraception. There is evidence for a reduction in high parity births, starting in the 1970s.     

A model of fertility motivation,desires, and expectations early in women's reproductive careers

Abstract

We propose a general model of the relationships connecting fertility motivations, desires, and expectations in which motivations are antecedent to desires, which in turn are antecedent to expectations. We describe differences in the model as it applies to women early in their reproductive careers, specifically, after marriage but before their first birth and after their first birth but before their second. We test the model with data from 311 just‐married and 318 just‐mothered women, using LISREL to estimate structural equations for both groups. The general model fits the data well. There are three primary differences in the model with respect to the two groups of married women. How soon a woman expects her next child affects how many children she expects only among the just‐married woman. The number of children expected by the woman is the only antecedent to how soon she expects her next child among the just‐mothered women. Both positive and negative maternal motivation has effects among the just‐married women, but only negative maternal motivation has effects among the just‐mothered women. These and other differences are discussed in terms of psychological and situational developments occurring early in women's reproductive careers.     

Polygyny, reproductive success and child health in rural Ethiopia: why marry a married man?

This study examines the reproductive success of men and women in rural Ethiopia as a function of their marital status, specifically by comparing polygamously and monogamously married individuals. In line with predictions from evolutionary theory, polygamy is beneficial to male reproductive success (i.e. producing larger numbers of surviving offspring). The success of polygamously married females depends on wife rank: the first wives of polygamous husbands do better than monogamously married women and much better than second or third wives. These effects are mirrored in child nutritional status: the children of second and third wives have lower weight for height. Due to potential, largely unmeasurable differences in marriageability (quality) between individuals, it was not possible to support a model of either resource-holding polygyny combined with female choice or female coercion into unwanted marriages. First wives of polygamously married men marry at a younger age and attract a higher brideprice, suggesting that both the males and females in the marriage are likely to be of higher quality (due to wealth, family status or some other factor such as beauty). Unions that end up monogamous are likely to be between slightly lower quality individuals; and second and third wives, who marry at the oldest ages and attract the lowest brideprice, may be 'making the best of a bad job'. The relatively long gap between first and second marriages may mean that first wives of highly marriageable males can enjoy considerable reproductive success before their husbands marry again.     

Is female attractiveness related to final reproductive success?

In order to test the assumption that female attractiveness relates to reproductive success, photographs of 47 rural Polish women taken in their youth were rated for attractiveness, and BMI at age 18 was recorded; these measures of attractiveness were then compared with their subsequent life histories. Facial attractiveness did not relate to number of children or grandchildren. It also did not relate to age of marriage or husband's education. It did relate to number of marriages and husband's height. BMI at age 18 did not relate significantly to any of the outcome variables. These results suggest that although more attractive women may have married higher quality (taller) husbands and may in ancestral population have achieved greater reproductive success this way, there is no evidence in a modern, European Catholic society for their having greater reproductive success.     

Sociodemographic attributes of Iranian wives who reported unwanted pregnancies

In a 1989 Family Planning Study in Iran, 40 percent of the married women of reproductive age reported that their last or current pregnancies were unwanted and unintended. This finding is consistent with the results obtained from a number of studies undertaken in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East. Although the phenomenon of unwanted pregnancy is a significant topic in the population studies, it has received very little attention. This paper shows the differences between two groups: group A, those married women who reported that their last or current pregnancies were wanted, and group B, those married women who reported that their last or current pregnancies were unwanted. The findings of this study clearly show significant differences between these two groups in regard to some key sociodemographic attributes: wife/husband's education, actual and desired fertility, wife's current age, past and present practice of contraceptive methods, and extent of satisfaction with family planning services are among the attributes differentiating these two groups. Our examination of these variables suggests that group B had higher parity, fertility, less desire for more children, less use of contraceptive techniques, and less satisfaction with the efficiency of the contraceptive techniques than group A. The relationship between education and wanted/unwanted pregnancies is mixed. The urban women who wanted pregnancies and were 25 years old or older were more educated than those who did not want pregnancies. On the contrary, the rural women whose pregnancies were not wanted were more educated than those who wanted pregnancies regardless of age, parity, and locality differences. Furthermore, the urban/rural women with different levels of parities who did not want to be pregnant were more educated than the urban/rural women who wanted pregnancies. Finally, the standardized regression coefficients, obtained in logistic regression, reveal that among urban women the desire for more children and parity are the first and second most significant independent variables differentiating between group A and group B. Among rural women, living children and the desire for more children were the first and second most important variables differentiating between group A and group B.     

Prenatal testing: Does reproductive autonomy succeed in dispelling eugenic concerns?

Traditionally, two main rationales for the provision of prenatal testing and screening are identified: the expansion of women’s reproductive choices and the reduction of the burden of disease on society. With the number of prenatal tests available and the increasing potential for their widespread use, it is necessary to examine whether the reproductive autonomy model remains useful in upholding the autonomy of pregnant women or whether it allows public health considerations and even eugenic aims to be smuggled in under the smokescreen of autonomy. In this article I argue that if we are serious about upholding women’s autonomy in the context of prenatal testing, what is needed is a model based on a more robust conception of reproductive autonomy, such as the one defended by Josephine Johnston and Rachel Zacharias as ‘reproductive autonomy worth having’. While Johnston and Zacharias put forward a basic outline of this conception, I apply it to the specific case of prenatal testing and show how it responds to objections levelled against the reproductive autonomy model. I argue that adopting this kind of conception is necessary to avoid fundamental challenges to women’s autonomy when it comes to prenatal screening and testing.     

Sociodemographic attributes of Iranian wives who reported unwanted pregnancies

Abstract

In a 1989 Family Planning Study in Iran, 40 percent of the married women of reproductive age reported that their last or current pregnancies were unwanted and unintended. This finding is consistent with the results obtained from a number of studies undertaken in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East. Although the phenomenon of unwanted pregnancy is a significant topic in the population studies, it has received very little attention. This paper shows the differences between two groups: group A, those married women who reported that their last or current pregnancies were wanted, and group B, those married women who reported that their last or current pregnancies were unwanted. The findings of this study clearly show significant differences between these two groups in regard to some key sociodemographic attributes: wife/husband's education, actual and desired fertility, wife's current age, past and present practice of contraceptive methods, and extent of satisfaction with family planning services are among the attributes differentiating these two groups. Our examination of these variables suggests that group B had higher parity, fertility, less desire for more children, less use of contraceptive techniques, and less satisfaction with the efficiency of the contraceptive techniques than group A. The relationship between education and wanted/unwanted pregnancies is mixed. The urban women who wanted‐pregnancies and were 25 years old or older were more educated than those who did not want pregnancies. On the contrary, the rural women whose pregnancies were not wanted were more educated than those who wanted pregnancies regardless of age, parity, and locality differences. Furthermore, the urban/rural women with different levels of parities who did not want to be pregnant were more educated than the urban/rural women who wanted pregnancies. Finally, the standardized regression coefficients, obtained in logistic regression, reveal that among urban women the desire for more children and parity are the first and second most significant independent variables differentiating between group A and group B. Among rural women, living children and the desire for more children were the first and second most important variables differentiating between group A and group B.     

Reproductive justice: Non-interference or non-domination?

The reproductive justice movement started by black women’s rights activists made its way into the academic literature as an intersectional approach to women’s reproductive autonomy. While there are many scholars who now employ the term ‘reproductive justice’ in their research, few have taken up the task of explaining what ‘justice’ entails in reproductive justice. In this paper I take up part of this work and attempt to clarify the relevant kind of freedom an adequate theory of reproductive justice would postulate. To do so, I compare two approaches to reproductive freedom: an approach based on freedom as non-interference and an approach based on freedom as non-domination. I then argue that the non-domination approach better fits the ideals of the reproductive justice movement as set forth by its founders and should be treated as one of the necessary conditions in any non-ideal account of reproductive justice. Towards the end, I single out epistemic non-domination as crucial in shaping the narrative around reproductive justice.     

Child fostering as a reproductive strategy among Southern African pastoralists

Information on child fosterage was obtained on 1902 individuals in the course of collecting 611 reproductive histories from Herero and Mbanderu pastoralists in northwestern Botswana in southern Africa. The hypothesis that women foster out their children as a strategy for increasing the number of children they produce is tested. Analysis of these data indicate that sex and birth year of children and parents' marital status significantly influence a child's risk of being fostered, but the relationship of fostering to fertility is unclear. More recently born individuals, females, and children born to parents who were not married to each other are more likely to be fostered than older individuals, males, and children born to parents who were married to each other. A child's risk of being fostered does not appear to be influenced by mother's age if the parents were married to each other, while children born to parents who were not married to each other are more likely to be fostered if the mother is very young, but this pattern is not clear. No association between fostering and mortality was found.     

The ‘tyranny of reproduction’: Could ectogenesis further women’s liberation?

This paper imagines what the liberatory possibilities of (full) ectogenesis are, insofar as it separates woman from female reproductive function. Even before use with human infants, ectogenesis productively disrupts the biological paradigm underlying current gender categories and divisions of labour. I begin by presenting a theory of women’s oppression drawn from the radical feminisms of the 1960s, which sees oppression as deeply rooted in biology. On this view, oppressive social meanings are overlaid upon biology and body, as artefacts of culture and history. I then argue that ectogenesis should be pursued to replace two modes of assisted gestation that can be seen as outgrowths of oppressive assumptions about women's function, ectogenesis should be pursued to replace two modes of assisted gestation. These are gestational surrogacy and uterine transplant, which arise partly from gendered, pronatalist, and geneticist norms. These practices are supported by assumptions about women’s identity and value. Pursuing technologies such as ectogenesis, which weaken the presumed link between biology and gender, is beneficial to (trans-inclusionary radical) feminist aims, as part of a broad project of challenging dominant power relations resting on and maintaining gender categories. By allowing the conceptual separation of female reproductive function from ‘woman’, ectogenesis raises questions about how we determine who counts in this gender identity, and also how we value those who claim the identity ‘woman’. I conclude that ectogenesis has the potential to challenge traditional patriarchal family structures, and thence all other male-dominated structures (of work, education, cultural production), allowing a reimagining of the family and society in more radical ways than we have yet achieved.     

Memory and war: Tamil women’s experiences of Sri Lanka’s civil war

This article explores how Tamil women in Australia reconstruct memories of Sri Lanka’s war through postmemory and personal experiences. Tamil women’s understandings of war are important for unravelling multiple sites of marginalization across social and political landscapes that challenge dominant perspectives of being Tamil-Australian. The article draws on sixteen in-depth interviews with Tamil women resettled in Australia as children in the 1980s and 1990s, foregrounding their unique position as part of a war generation. It shows that Tamil women’s experiences of political engagement during the final stages of war were motivated by memories of individual and collective sufferings. However, loss, exclusion and forced migration characterize their ambivalent connections to homeland. Not always tied to dominant memories of war, victimhood and subordination, the article concludes that each Tamil woman represents ongoing resistances, survival and renegotiations of Tamil diasporic experiences of war that are produced by their memory and memory work.     

The Lady Vanishes: What’s Missing from the Stem Cell Debate

Most opponents of somatic cell nuclear transfer and embryonic stem cell technologies base their arguments on the twin assertions that the embryo is either a human being or a potential human being, and that it is wrong to destroy a human being or potential human being in order to produce stem cell lines. Proponents’ justifications of stem cell research are more varied, but not enough to escape the charge of obsession with the status of the embryo. What unites the two warring sides in ‘the stem cell wars’ is that women are equally invisible to both: ‘the lady vanishes.’ Yet the most legitimate property in the body is that which women possess in their reproductive tissue and the products of their reproductive labour. By drawing on the accepted characterisation in the common law of property as a bundle of rights, and on a Hegelian model of contract as mutual recognition, we can lessen the impact of the tendency to regard women and their ova as merely receptacles and women’s reproductive labour as unimportant.     

How Sex Selection Undermines Reproductive Autonomy

Non-medical sex selection is premised on the notion that the sexes are not interchangeable. Studies of individuals who undergo sex selection for non-medical reasons, or who have a preference for a son or daughter, show that they assume their child will conform to the stereotypical roles and norms associated with their sex. However, the evidence currently available has not succeeded in showing that the gender traits and inclinations sought are caused by a “male brain” or a “female brain”. Therefore, as far as we know, there is no biological reason why parents cannot have the kind of parenting experience they seek with a child of any sex. Yet gender essentialism, a set of unfounded assumptions about the sexes which pervade society and underpin sexism, prevents parents from realising this freedom. In other words, unfounded assumptions about gender constrain not only a child’s autonomy, but also the parent’s. To date, reproductive autonomy in relation to sex selection has predominantly been regarded merely as the freedom to choose the sex of one’s child. This paper points to at least two interpretations of reproductive autonomy and argues that sex selection, by being premised on gender essentialism and/or the social pressure on parents to ensure their children conform to gender norms, undermines reproductive autonomy on both accounts.     

Fertility and post-reproductive longevity

We examine the effects of reproduction on longevity among mothers and fathers after age 60. This study is motivated by evolutionary theories of aging and theories predicting social benefits and costs of children to older parents. We use the Utah Population Database, that includes a large genealogical database from the Utah Family History Library. Cox proportional hazard models based on 13,987 couples married between 1860-1899 indicate that women with fewer children as well as those bearing children late in life live longer post-reproductive lives. As the burdens of motherhood increase, the relative gains in longevity of late fertile women increase compared to their non-late fertile counterparts. Husbands' longevity is less sensitive to reproductive history, although husbands have effects that are similar to those of their wives during the latter marriage cohort. We find some support for predictions based on evolutionary principles, but we also find evidence that implicates a role for shared marital environments.     

A model of fertility motivation, desires, and expectations early in women's reproductive careers

We propose a general model of the relationships connecting fertility motivations, desires, and expectations in which motivations are antecedent to desires, which in turn are antecedent to expectations. We describe differences in the model as it applies to women early in their reproductive careers, specifically, after marriage but before their 1st birth and after their 1st birth but before their 2nd. We test the model with data from 311 just-married and 318 just-mothered US women enrolled in a prospective psychology of reproduction study, using LISREL (analysis of linear structural relationships by the method of maximum likelihood) software to estimate structural equations for both groups. The general model fits the data well. There are 3 primary differences in the model with respect to the 2 groups of married women. How soon a woman expects her next child affects how many children she expects only among the just-married woman. The number of children expected by the woman is the only antecedent to how soon she expects her next child among the just-mothered women. Both positive and negative maternal motivation has effects among the just-married women, but only negative maternal motivation has effects among the just-mothered women. These and other differences are discussed in terms of psychological and situational developments occurring early in women's reproductive careers.     

‘Playing Like Men’: The Extramarital Experiences of Women in Contemporary Japan

Women's sexuality in Japan has persistently been linked to reproduction, while men's sexuality is associated with play, and the patriarchal structure of Japanese society even endorses male infidelity. In recent years, however, there are indications, especially in the popular media in Japan, that many married women are ‘playing like men’ by turning to extramarital activities to re-negotiate the meaning of sexuality and the bounds of marriage. While their behaviour can be interpreted as autonomous acts of affirming themselves as subjects of their own desire, dominant power structures still exist in Japanese society to restrict women's sexuality. This article examines the growing ‘gender instability’ in marriage in Japan as married women navigate through the morally contentious realm of extramarital activities to negotiate a new sense of self, and argues for sexuality as an increasingly embattled terrain for socio-historical manoeuvrings, media enticements, marital strategies, and personal insurgencies in postindustrial Japan.     

Educational homogamy lowers the odds of reproductive failure

Assortative mating based on education is a common phenomenon. We investigated whether it affected parameters of reproductive performance such as childlessness, offspring number and age at first marriage. On the basis of the US census from 1980 (n = 670,631 married US couples), we find that the proportion of childless individuals is usually minimal in women married to a husband of the same educational level. This holds particularly true in the highest and the lowest educated women. Educational homogamy is also associated with a lower average age at first marriage. No obvious effect of educational homogamy on a woman''s average offspring number is found, where mean offspring number generally increases both with decreasing woman''s and decreasing husband''s educational attainment. We conclude that educational homogamy reduces the likelihood of reproductive failure.     

The Clock Is Ticking

The “biological clock” serves as a powerful metaphor that reflects the constraints posed by female reproductive biology. The biological clock refers to the progression of time from puberty to menopause, marking the period during which women can conceive children. Findings from two experiments suggest that priming the passage of time through the sound of a ticking clock influenced various aspects of women’s (but not men’s) reproductive timing. Moreover, consistent with recent research from the domain of life history theory, those effects depended on women’s childhood socioeconomic status (SES). The subtle sound of a ticking clock led low (but not high) SES women to reduce the age at which they sought to get married and have their first child (Study 1), as well as the priority they placed on the social status and long-term earning potential of potential romantic partners (Study 2). Findings suggest that early developmental sensitization processes can interact with subtle environmental stimuli to affect reproductive timing during adulthood.