Mother's and Father's perception of the consequences of only-Child Family

The reduction in average annual rate of population growth, which is a global phenomenon, has primarily occurred due to reductions in fertility levels. An inevitable outcome of this drift is a reduction in family size and emergence of only-child families. These unique families are growing all over the world; they have influenced the structure of family, kinship network and have also penetrated the socio-economic and demographic composition of the society. The Review of literature highlights that it is an emerging trend especially among the urban educated sections of the Indian society. Now-a-days, couples are viewing parenthood as a huge liability and they are not ready to give up their personal and materialistic gains for large family size. In other words, a strong tradeoff is going on between child quality and quantity. These notions are strongly influencing the fertility decisions of the couples and encouraging them to limit their family size to only one child. The Steady increase in the proportion of this family size has fetched both positive and negative consequences for both individual and society as a whole. Through present study, an attempt has been made to identify who are the women and men who have only one child, by ascertaining their socio-economic profile, whether they have acquired this family size voluntarily or involuntarily. An attempt has also been made to study the mother’s and father’s perception about the consequences of this family size.