The Effect of Education on Awareness and Attitude in the Context of the Demographic Change View PDF

One of the basic issues in today’s world is the issue of population growth, the subject of the population does not seem to be a new issue, but the reality is that the population has never been important than it is now (1). Today’s increase in population and its related characteristics are the basis for any planning and policy (2). The population is the source of immortality that can play a decisive role in the realization of economic and social programs of countries (3). Growth in the population and its impact on economic development is a subject that has been attracting the attention of economic and demographic experts from the past. For many years, economists have come to believe that an important factor in the development of societies is its human resources, not it's capital and its material resources. Hence, the transformations and interactions of the population, economic and social development cannot be ignored in policy and development planning (4). In explaining the relationship between population growth and economic development, population growth plays an opposite role in the development process, where can act as a stimulant and an inhibitor of growth and development.Under favorable economic conditions, population growth is clearly an important driver of economic growth and increasing people’s living standards, because the growing populationleads to providing the necessary workforce for the optimal use of economic resources, on the other hand, the necessary markets for the attraction of goods can be created, as well as the possibility of profitable production on a large scale (5). Fertility as one of the main components of population growth is a subject that has always beenn considered, where extensive research has been carried out to identify the factors affecting it in Iran and other countries. In this regard, measuring and understanding the level of fertility in each social class is not only necessary in demographic forecasts as the basis and basis for economic, social and demographic planning for development, but also plays a key role in assessing the economic and social conditions of the society under study. Demographic changes are affected by fertility, mortality and migration. In a population where migration does not occur, the components of fertility and mortality contribute to the stabilization or change in the distribution and composition of the population. In the absence of migration, only fertility can guarantee the survival of society through compensation for death, and if fertility is greater than the force of mortality, it will lead to growth (6). About 200 years ago, most women gave birth too many children. For instance, in the middle of the 19th century in the United States and Australia, nearly 50% of women had 9 use of economic resources, on the other hand, the necessary markets for the attraction of goods can be created, as well as the possibility of profitable production on a large scale (5). Fertility as one of the main components of population growth is a subject that has always been considered, where extensive research has been carried out to identify the factors affecting it in Iran and other countries. In this regard, measuring and understanding the level of fertility in each social class is not only necessary in demographic forecasts as the basis and basis for economic, social and demographic planning for development, but also plays a key role in assessing the economic and social conditions of the society under study. Demographic changes are affected by fertility, mortality and migration. In a population where migration does not occur, the components of fertility and mortality contribute to the stabilization or change in the distribution and composition of the population. In the absence of migration, only fertility can guarantee the survival of society through compensation for death, and if fertility is greater than the force of mortality, it will lead to growth (6). About 200 years ago, most women gave birth too many children. For instance, in the middle of the 19th century in the United States and Australia, nearly 50% of women had 9 the first half of the 19th century in France. Thenit was revealed in them second half of the 19th century in the United States, other European countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (8). This decline has already occurred in Asia, especially in East Asia and the South East. In 1965, the fertility rate in Asia was determined as 5.7 children per woman, which dropped to 2.5 children per woman in the next three decades (1995). However, in the south and west Asia, this phenomenon is proceeding more slowly. Developing these changes in Asia, especially in Iran, has a special opportunity, given the specific social and economic context, to test fertility theories in non-European societies. Fertility, as the most important factor in population fluctuations, has made its related studies considerable importance as compared to other demographic phenomena. Factors affecting fertility such as economic, social, and cultural factors have a large role in demographic development (9). By 1360, Iran had a proportional population, while in the years 1981 to 1991 there was an explosion of population and unprecedented population growth, where the population doubled. Then, since the year 1991, the family planning and population control program was implemented and the childbearing was less on the agenda of the government, but this decline in population reduced long-run growth rate of the population well as the household from 4.53 in 2006 to 3.5 in the 2011. The population growth rate in the last two decades and in particular the censuses of 90 haveindicated that Iran has entered the second phase of the demographic transition. Demographictransmission, and in particular the rapid decline in overall fertility in Iran, has led to fundamental changes in the age structure of the population. This will face the country with challenges such as fertility below replacement level, population decline in working age, senility, and negative population growth (10). The increase in population in developing countries, especially Iran, is necessary through a systematic planning, training and real participation of people. This is only possible if there is enough awarenessin terms of social groups’ attitude. In this regard, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of education on awareness and attitudes about demographic change.

This is a cross-sectionaland descriptive-analytic study that applied a combination of documentary and field study upon the use ofscrolling technique. In this model, various books and resources in the context of demographic change and also fertility and Child bearing were used and the questionnaire was provided to measure the thoughts, awareness and attitudes of the subjects, using the scrolling techniqueor the presence of the researcher in the study field. The information gathering tool was conducted in a library study through taking notes. Furthermore, in the scrolling technique, a researcher-made questionnaire has been used. The research variables were measured in nominal and sequential scale and the questionnaire questions were also compiled and measured on Likert scale. In this research, a pre-test of the subjects was initially performed when they were not yet exposed to the training program. Moreover, the same group was included in the training program, the secondary test or post-event was next conducted and the results were subsequently examined. The study target was the military families of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army. The study population was also from the target community, including the Army families of the organizational home of the Army, in Amir Abad, Tehran. The sampling method is a combination of quota and systematic approach. In this regard, all individuals of reproductive age were divided into 3 age groups and regarding the population density of each group and the sampling size, they were allocated to each quota group, and then from each group were systematically chosen.Given the Morgan table and the study population of 2580 people, the sample size was determined as 170. The datacollection tool in this study was a questionnaire which consisted of three parts related to personal information or birth certificate, awareness and attitude of the individuals participating in the initial test (before intervention) and the secondary test (after intervention). The training of people was performed by distributing pamphlets and responding personally to questions of individuals. Research data includes mean, average, variance, mean deviation, and standard deviation. To evaluate the hypothesis, the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficientas a nonparametric measurement was used. Moreover, a regression coefficient in multiple regressionand path analysis as a straightforward extension of multiple regressionswere applied to measure the effect of variables on each other. A new statistical change analysisapproachwasalso provided foranalyzing the scores of awareness and attitude.Thedifference in variables was considered significant at P <0.05.

In questions about attitude, the options are completely agree, disregard, no comments, oppose, and completely opposed. Responses with a more positive tendency received 5 points, and responses with a negative approach received 1 score. The total attitude score of each person was considered to range from1 to 5 points for each question and the total score of the questions was consequently calculated as the total score of the attitude.Regarding theawareness questions, the correct answers were scored 1, while the false answers and not having informationwere given scores -1.3 and zero, respectively. Finally, the total scorewas accordinglycalculated. The change in the awareness or attitude scores before the training was compared with the scores after the training. Furthermore, the total score of awareness or attitude was deducted from the previous grade after training each person and considered as changes in the level of awareness or attitude. It is worth noting that the purpose and nature of this research has been described for all the units. All collected data was completely confidential and referring to the names and surnames of the unitswere avoided on the questionnaires in both the primary and secondary tests.

Part I:Frequency description based upon birth certificate questions

The frequency of respondents based on the age variable indicates that 22.4% of the respondents were in the age group of 20-30 years, while 45.9% of them were classified in the age group of 31-40 years and 31.8% of them were categorized in the age group of 41-49 years old. Educational variables indicate that 4.1% of respondents were in high school, followed by 19.4% with diploma education, 31.8% withassociate degree, 24.7% with Bachelor degree, and 20% withmasters and higher degrees.The frequency of respondents based upon the length of the marriage suggested that 21.8% of respondents are one year old or less, 17.6% of them are between 2 to 4 years old, followed by 5-7 years (30%), 10-7 years (17.6%) and 10 years and higher(12.9%).The number of children demonstrated that 21.8% of respondents had one child, followed by two children (17.6%), three children (30%), four children(17.6%), and five children and higher(12.9%), respectively.The frequency of respondents based on the age of the spouse showed that 14.7% of the spouses were aged between 20-30 years, followed by 40- 31 years (25.3%), 49-41 years (52%) and age category of 50 and older (3.5%). On the other hand, 1.8% of them did not answer the question. The variable frequency of information sources indicates that important information sources consisted of TV (14.1%), newspapers (15.3%), educational videos (35.9%), pamphlet (15.9%) and colleagues (18.8%). The frequency of respondents based upon the childbearing variables revealed that 12.4% of the respondents tended to have a very low childbearing, followed by low (32.9%), moderate (17.1%), high (21%) and very high (15.9%). While the posttest findings suggested that 4.1% of respondents tended to have more childbearing, followed by low percentage (19.4%), moderate percentage (31.8%), high percentage (24.1%) and very high percentage (20.6%).By comparing the two tests, it can be concluded that education has been effective in increasing the inclination of childbearing in the research community. The frequency of respondents based on the variable of knowledge about demographic policies shows that in the pretest 28.2% of the respondents answered ‘’yes’’ and 71.8% of the respondents answered ‘’no’’.While 84.1% of the respondents answered yes in the posttest, and only 15.9% of the respondents answered ‘’no’’ that by comparing the two tests, it could be concluded that education was useful in understanding demographic policies

Part II: frequency based on the knowledge questions. The first group of awareness questions:the level of awareness

Awareness of participants in the pre-test and post-test was studied upon use of the collected data through a questionnaire. Table 1 shows the level of awareness of participants in pre-test and post-test about having general information in context of population policies and population growth, which is the result of two questionnaires extracted from pre-test and post-test. Regarding the results of Table 1, there is a significant difference between the two tests for increasing the fertility rate, indicating the effectiveness of the training (P <0.5). In order to assess the awareness of the participants in the test,

Table 1.A survey of respondents' awareness about the increase in fertility rates in the first group of questions

Table 2.Frequency distribution of respondents in pre and posttest according to the response to the second group of questions

Industry sector

data in terms of the impact of population growth on infrastructure development were collected, the results of which are summarized in Table 2.

As shown in Table 2, in the majority of variables, there is a significant difference in the comparison of the two tests, except for health, housing and agriculture, indicating the effectiveness of education in awareness. However, there is not a significant difference between the two tests regarding health, dwelling place and agriculture, where is not indicative of theeducational effectivenessin awareness p<0.5.

Third group of awareness questions: Knowledge of people in the context of Islam’s view of more child-rearing In order to assess the knowledge of the participants in the test information about the Islamic view of childbearing is presented in the Table 3.

According to the results of Table 3, there is a significant difference between the variables in the pre-test and post-test observation, suggesting the effectiveness of education in awareness.

Part III: Attitude

The multivariate regression model (Table 4a and 4b) was used using the ENTER method to evaluate the effect of education on the awareness of military spouses on the issue of fertility and population growth. R2 (r-squared value/ the coefficient of determination) was equal to 248/0, which means that the learning variable was able to predict the variables of the awareness of the military wives about the issue of increasing population by 0.248. In other words, the above variable could predict the awareness variable to 24%, where in the human sciences this amount is favorable for R2 (Table 5).

Table 3.Frequency distribution of respondents in pre-test and post-test in terms of response to the third group of questions

Table 4a.Frequency and Percent Distribution of Attitudes Questions of the Research Unit on Demographic Change

Table 4b.Frequency and Percent Distribution of Attitudinal Questions of the Researched Units on Policy Change

The results of ANOVA indicated that in the 95% confidence interval, the variance was equal to 139.1 and 162 degrees of freedom showed a significant level of 0.039 (Table 6).

In other words, linear regressionhas the ability to explain the variance of military wives’ awareness in relation to population growth, more than the residual variance. As matter of fact, there was asignificant relationship between the effect of education and increasing awareness of military spouses on population growth.

As Table 7 shown, in the multivariable regression, the educational variable has had an impact on in increasing awareness of families in terms of fertility and population.

The linear equation of prediction regression can be written as follows using standardized coefficients:

Y=a+b1x1+b2x2

Y=29.99+0.638(training) ± 0.483 (Awareness)

The fixed value with the width of the source is 29.99 and the coefficient of the effect of the awarenessvariable is equal to 6,388, which, the awareness variable will also vary by one unit for a unit of change in the educational variable. It should be noted that due to the relationship between these two variables, the forecast rate is high. Military wives’ attitude toward education has changed in relation to the issue of fertility and population growth. The multivariate regression method was used to examine the research model using the ENTER method (Table 8).

Table 5.The predicted regression model for the variables of the effect of training the wives of military spouses on the issue of fertility and population increase.

Table 6.ANOVA analysis of variance analysis

Table 7.Regression coefficients for predicted models

Table 8:Predicted regression model to predict the attitude of military spouses on the issue of fertility and population growth.

Table 9.ANOVA analysis of variance analysis.

Table 10.Regression coefficients for predicted models

R² was equal to R2=355, meaning that the learning variable was able to predict the attitude of the military spouses about the population increase (R²=0.335). In other words, the learning variable could predict the attitude variable to 35%, and in the human sciences this amount is favorable for R² (Table 9).

The results of ANOVA test showed that in the 95% confidenceinterval, the variance was equal to 1.3337 and in the degree of freedom 162 significant levels was 0.028.

In other words, the regression lines more than the residual variancewas able to explain the variable of the attitude of the military spouses regarding the issue of population increase. Indeed, there was a significant relationship between the effect of education and the attitude of the military spouses regarding population growth.

As seen in Table 10, in the multivariate regression, the educationalvariable affected the change in attitude of families regarding the issue of increasing fertility and population.

Based on non-standardized coefficients, linear prediction regression equation can be written as follows: Y=a+b1x1+b2x2, Y=14.736+0.942(Attitude) ± 0.523 (education)

The fixed value with the width from the source is 14.736 and the coefficient effect of the attitude variable is equal to 0.942. In exchange for a unit of change in the educational variable, the attitude variable will vary by one unit. It should be noted, that due to the association between these two variables, the forecast rate is high.

Health is the right of every human being, and it is an integrated part of the development of society, and in achieving that, the balance between the population and the existing facilities that determines the acceleration and movement towards economic or social development is unavoidable (11). One of the important factors influencing the economic growth of the countries is the size of the population and the birth rate in these countries. Population is one of the factors affecting economic growth in the long term. Some studies have shown the negative effect of this factor on economic growth and some have a positive effect (12). One of the most important issues in demographic studies is the fertility rate and its main indicators. Given the rapid growth of the population, economic and social growth will not be realized in any society without accurate knowledge of demographic changes and the more favorable use of the potential of human resources. Therefore, the balance between the population and the available facilities and its fair distribution is important in determining the pace of movement towards economic growth and development (13). Fertility changes are a very important factor in determining the demographic trends of a country. Changes in fertility levels are the most important factors in changing the age structure of the population. Continuous reduction in fertility reduces the number of births and thus reduces the number of people in the age groups at the bottom of the age pyramid. On the contrary, the high fertility level increases the proportion of young people and, as a result,mextends the age range of the Pyramid.Fertility level has been widely considered in recent decades in IRAN, where various studies have been performed. Despite the many differences in these studies, all have an almost identical trend in fertility (14). The current study was aimed to investigate the effect of education on awareness and attitudes of people regarding demographic change. The results of the study revealed that the training had a positive impact on the subjects, suggesting the effectiveness of the training.

Among the questions of this study, the greatest impact of education was observed to be associated with the question of “the impact of cultural poverty on reducing desire for childbearing”, which the correct answers before the training (84 %) increased to 98.8% of the correct response at post-training level.In the universal examination of fertility in 1987, parental education had a significant relationship with child mortality, and in almost all of the countries surveyed, maternal education was mostlyassociated with child mortality, where child mortality decreased with higher maternal education and an increase in the culture of life, (15). In the study of Kravdal in India and Zhenga in China, the education of women through increasing their awareness of health and illness, the use of preventive health services such as child nutrition and child care directly affected the reduction of child mortality, whichis consistent with the findings of this study (16-17). In the Wang study in Hong Kong, , child mortality was lower in urban areas with an appropriate economic level, while in 1979-83 social deprivation was significantly associated with infant mortality and reduced fertility. In this research, there was a significant difference between the two tests in frequency distribution of respondents in pre-test and post-test in response to the economic question (18). Hosseini in Jangrood, Iran (19) reported that employed women experienced fewer deaths than non-mothers. Moreover, a study by Hosseini (20) in Qurveh Iran,showed that the continuation of family planning programs, includingincreased levels Literacy and education among individuals and families have led to a reduction in unemployment and serious consideration to employment issues. As a result, the reduction of class inequalities has led to the improvement of the socio-economic base of individuals, which shows a significant relationship between employment and the reduction of child mortality. The results of various studies indicate that increasing the level of parental care reduces the high fertility rate and child mortality (21).

Any planning and training in the field of population growth requires the actual participation of the people. This is possible when sufficient knowledge of various social groupsin terms of their attitudes be available. In general, the results of this study indicate that education can increase the awareness of people in terms of population growth and their attitude is completely positive. As a result, it has a direct impact on population growth and reproductive health in the country, and even with short-term training programs, it is possible to change people’s attitudes. It is suggested that these trainings be set at a lower age for community members.

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