THE IMPACT OF SPOUSE’S EDUCATIONAL STATUS ON FAMILY SIZE IN LOWER MIDDLE SOCIOECONOMIC GROUP OF RAWALPINDI CITY: Spouse’s Educational Status on Family Size

Objective: To establish a relationship between family size and educational status of female and male subjects belonging to lower middle socioeconomic group of Rawalpindi city.Study Design: Cross sectional comparative study.Place and Duration of Study: Rawalpindi city over a period of six months, from September 2015 to February 2016.Material and Methods: The 200 participants of this study were categorized according to their educational status after noting their demographic profiles. Comparison of the number of offsprings in different educational categories was done.Results: The data suggested that both illiterate women and men had the maximum number of offsprings. Sixty percent of illiterate wives and fifty-eight percent of illiterate husbands had five or more offsprings each. Amongst the better-educated respondents of both groups, seventy six percent had three or less offsprings. In this regard, the majority of post Matric qualified husbands had the least number of offsprings. Fisher’s Chi-square test was used to establish the relationship between educational status and family size. A highly significant relationship was seen when these variables were co-related statistically (p-value=0.001).Conclusion: The results emphasise the importance of education of couples, especially in the densely packed lower-middle socioeconomic groups, as data showed that better educated participants had a smaller family size.