The construction of a small-family norm in Java

Abstract

The thesis question arises from findings that responses on ideal family size asked in the 1976 Indonesia Fertility Survey and the 1987 National Indonesia Contraceptive Prevalence Survey suffer from bias toward respondents’ number of children, and the suspicion that they merely reflect societal norms rather than personal ideals. But when statements on ideal family size between the two surveys are compared, there is an indication of changing attitudes toward smaller family size observable across all age groups of women leading to a speculation that a new norm of smaller family size must have been introduced to women in Java. While the standard theory hypothesized that fertility decline is preceded by changes in fertility preference, this thesis provides evidence that family size preference of women in Java changes along with the increasing practice of contraception and the fertility decline. The family planning program which was initiated in 1968 was able to provide chances for women to experience the benefit of using contraception and having fewer children. The campaign of ‘stop-at-two’ changed the people’s perception from ‘family size was not a matter for choice’ to ‘numeracy about children’ and to accepting the family size of two or three children. This thesis concludes that the small-family norm in Java was constructed and introduced to the people rather than emerging because of the modernization process. The ideal family size in Java has changed from a socially determined large-family size to a socially determined small-family size of two or three children. The growing tendency for younger women to use contraception for spacing and stopping at two or three children suggests that individual small family size determination is under way.