Attitudes Related to the Number of Children Wanted and Expected by College Students in Three Countries

Abstract

A 40-item questionnaire for assessing attitudes toward contraception, abortion, family planning, population management, and modernity was administered to 562 American, 419 Italian, and 136 Swiss college students (515 males, 602 females). Information regarding number of children wanted and expected was also obtained. Transnational difference on the five scales were more pronounced for females than for males. American students scored highest on population management and Swiss students scored highest on modernity. Italian students scored lower than the other two samples on favorability of attitudes toward abortion. The five attitude scales had primarily negative relationships to number of children wanted and expected by male and female subsamples in all three countries. Regression analyses of the attitude measures against the two criteria (number of children wanted and expected) identified linear combinations of the scales that produced, respectively, cross-validational coefficients of .38 and .34 for males and .36 and .40 for females.