Age at marriage and intrafamily planning in young families

The sociological inquiry on current problems of intrafamily planning carried out in 1995 provided opportunities for finding the effect of a number of social and demographic factors on the formation of family.

The present study has investigated the influence of the age of woman at marriage on the main indicators characterizing the reproductive behavior.

Direct individual inquiry was performed and 500 young families from the town of Plovdiv were approached. Data were analyzed by percentage distribution methods and non-parametric tests.

We should note here the high percentage of spouses who had not planned the number of children in their future family--33.1% of women and 34.3% of men. Paradoxically, the percentage of women that had not planned the number of children in their families increases with age. The intended number of children does not depend on the age of women at marriage. The women aged below 19 have indicated the highest number of children. The "ideal number of children" indicator has the highest value in women aged below 19 (2.25 children), but there is no statistically significant difference in the ideal number of children between the different age groups. The opinion about a "large family" is studied in spouses and relatives of the young family. With the increase of age, the number of children in the "large family" decreases in all three groups (P < 0.001). There is no difference in length of the protogenetic interval between different age groups. Intergenetic interval between the first and second birth is about three years in all three age groups. The largest interval between the second and third birth is registered in women aged above 25. About half of the women have admitted that they do not wish to have a third child. The age at last delivery is highly correlated with age at marriage (P < 0.05); the correlation is strongest in women above 25 years of age.