A girl child is undesirable in many regions of the world. China and India alone are responsible for 80 million missing females. Punjab tops the list in number of female foeticide cases reported over the last three years with Rajasthan coming next.
The aim of the study is to assess the attitude and family support of couples toward the birth of a girl child in selected rural and urban areas of the Punjab.
A descriptive, cross-sectional, survey was conducted to assess the attitude and family support of couples toward the birth of girl child in selected urban and rural areas of Punjab. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 200 married couples from both rural and urban area. Self-structured interview schedule was prepared to assess the attitude and family support of couples.
The findings revealed that the mean attitude score (U = 99.28, R = 93.07) and mean family support score (U = 72.90, R = 67.85) was higher among couples residing in urban area than rural area. The study also find significant difference between attitude and family support at p<0.01 level. Attitude level had significant difference within educational level, family income, living area and occupation status at p<0.01 level. In the study, maximum males had more positive attitude and family support than females in urban and rural area. Under the categories of birth, female foeticide, education & decision making, mostly subjects from urban had favorable attitude & family support than rural. While for category law & marriage mostly subjects from rural had favorable attitude than urban area.
Thus the study concluded that subjects from selected urban area had more favorable than rural. Among couples males had more positive attitude and family support than females.
couples, attitude, family support, and birth of girl child
