Analysis of Factors Influencing Fertility of Women with Disabilities

Abstract

Objectives: This paper is written with the purpose of revealing the influencing factors that affects the disabled womens procreativeness. From the past researches we concluded what causes women with disabilities to decide to become mothers while being subjected to three discriminatory factors: disability, female and poverty (Moin, et al., 2009). In my research I will focus more on detailed disability and social support variables that has not been concerned as essential variables from the previous studies. I focus on the socio-demographic, economic, health and disability, and social support factors that affect fertility (in this paper I refer fertility as the average number of children). Methods: This study was conducted by using the survey data from People with Disability in Korea 2014, co-conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA). The dependent variable was the average number of children of a woman with disability. Independent variables from the micro dataset consisted of health and disability variables, social support variables, socio-demographic variables, and economic variables. A multiple regression analyses was conducted with all the above variables. All statistical analyses were conducted using the IBM SPSS 22.0, using the 0.05 criterion of significance. Results: The verification of regression coefficient showed that age, education level, marital status, income level, mental disability, type of disability of the spouse, and material support had statistical significance on fertility rate (p<.05). The most noticeable outcome was the disability type variable and material support variable. The type of disability of both husband and wife had different affects to fertility. The material support was the affective factor on fertility

not only among the social support variables but among all variables that were used for analysis. Conclusions: This study aimed to examine the factors that determine the fertility of women with disabilities. The result of the analysis focused primarily on health and disability factors as well as social support factors. The result indicated that disability type had a statistically significant effect that has not been mentioned in previous researches. And Material support was the most effective factor on fertility. It is highly likely that the findings of this study will serve as a reference for prospective researches concerning fertility of women with disabilities and also contribute to the implementation of more effective government policies for women with disabilities.