Family Planning in the Lives of Men commissioned by the BZgA

Bundeszentrale
für gesundheitliche Aufklärung

Applicant:

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Essbach
Zentrum für Anthropologie und Gender Studies
Institut für Soziologie der Universität Freiburg
Rempartstr. 15
79098 Freiburg
Germany
Tel.: +49 761 203 3494

Wolfgang.Essbach@soziologie.uni-freiburg.de

Prof. Dr. Cornelia Helfferich
Sozialwissenschaftliches Frauenforschungsinstitut
Kontaktstelle praxisorientierte Forschung der
Evangelischen Fachhochschule Freiburg
Wilhelmstr. 15
79098 Freiburg
Germany
Tel.: +49 761 2766 24
Fax: +49 761 2766 25

soffi.k@swol.de

Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung
Ostmerheimer Str. 220
51109 Köln
Informations: Angelika Heßling
Tel.: +49 221/8992-238

www.bzga.de

Résumé of the project / Research goals

Under the Pregnancy and Family Assistance Law of 1992, the Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (Federal Centre for Health Education; BZgA) was charged with developing concepts for sex education which would improve preventive health care and lead to the avoidance and solution of pregnancy conflicts as well as the prevention of, or at least a reduction in, unwanted pregnancies. These concepts comprise both targeted education measures and concepts designed to equip counsellors with the necessary skills to work in centres covering the fields of family, marriage, sex and pregnancy. The proposed research project seeks to provide foundations not only for this programme, but also other aspects of the work of the BZgA, both indirectly (development of a monitoring instrument) and directly (initial results obtained with the instruments as developed and tested).

By explicitly induding men in family planning and family work, the project takes account of the demands of the second Federal Equal Opportunities Law, which is also in line with the concepts of the BZgA. The proposed research seeks to provide the material needed to complement existing insights into the part played by family planning in the lives of women, and thus dose a gap in research in this area.

The goals are as follows:

at the methodological level

• to develop a monitoring instrument for later regular surveys of men on family planning matters (desire for children, starting a family etc.);

and at the level of current substantive knowledge

• to carry out a regionally representative description of central aspects of family planning in the lives of men, in particular in those areas where surveys of the general population have so far provided few insights;
• to compare the reproductive biographies of men in different regions, in particular in eastern and western Germany, in different age-groups, and in groups defined by different educational achievement;
• to reconstruct the viewpoint of different groups of men (in particular on questions of feasibility, and of the possibility of planning, induding the uptake of ante-natal diagnosis);
• to come up with findings both on barriers and particular sources of tension affecting men, and also of positive male resources in the field of family and career which might be exploited in the context of improving equal opportunities between the sexes (e.g. in connexion with "gender mainstreaming" measures);
• to compare the results obtained for women and for men; the proposed research seeks results in the areas of agreement, complementarity and potential conflict between the sexes in relation to family strategies.

The substantive research topics include the following (while maintaining a general distinction between East and West, and between different age and different social groups).

• What is men's perception of what for them too is an increasing social contradiction between family and career? Is a decision not to have children, or to delay first marriage and the first child, to be seen as an attempted solution?
• How do men experience the necessity, and limits to the feasibility, of family planning? What form does the desire for children take in the different phases of their lives? What does it mean to be able to father children weIl into old age? How do men deal with unplanned and unwanted reproductive events?
• What biographical phases do men go through (initiation, moratorium and experiment, consolidation), and how do their own career and family biographies intermesh with each other and with those of their partners?
• Can "reproductive cultures" be established for particular social groups, as was found by the "women's lives" study to be the case for the women surveyed? What are the relevant factors (East/West, educational level, urban/rural)?
• What do the sexes have in common, and wherein lies the potential for mutual conflict? Can men and women still be said to fit together at all in respect of the family-planning strategies they apply to the conditions laid down by society? How do bargaining processes work?

In addition, an attempt will be made to answer individual questions, for example concerning unplanned pregnancies, abortions, and treatments for sub-fertility, planning and the wish for children, (early/late) decision to have children, family orientation/paternal role in the biography and in antenatal diagnosis

Among the research issues relating to the development of suitable instruments are the following:

• Which indicators are of importance tor regular observation among men (and women) of developments in the area of family planning?
• Which forms of question work well with men? Which formulations are understood differently by men and by women? What methodological solutions are there to the problem of the high level of male ignorance concerning the reproductive behaviour of their partners?
• How can more men be persuaded to take part? What barriers discourage men from taking part in surveys like these, what approaches and incentives might encourage an interest?

Research approach

The project exploits the general approach of the study "women's lives". This involved

• a comprehensive understanding of family planning as the "design" of a private life;
• a target-group-related Iife-history perspective taking account of social background and sexual socialisation;
• a combination of standardised and qualitative methods: the latter; with its integration of subjective aspects, has proved its worth in previous work (secondary evaluation of the DESIS study, "women's lives", HIV-prevention and contraception as meaningful practice on the part of men);
• inclusion of subjective aspects (through the qualitative procedure);
• a socio-regional approach (the survey focuses on three regions)
• the use (where appropriate) of the same questions as used in "women's lives".

Research phases and research design

The project comprises:

• an experts' workshop in the first three months of the project, in order to discuss the relevant questions and formulations with experts and to encourage secondary analyses of existing databases in comparable form;
• a standardised survey of 1500 men in three regions of Germany focusing on "reproductive biographies" (standardised questionnaire, population sample, telephone random sample, computer-assisted telephone interviews);
• a qualitative-biographical follow-up survey of 80 men focusing on "narrative reproductive life-history" (biographical interviews, contrasting sample-selection, hermeneutic and content-analytical evaluation);
• eight group-discussions with men on the subject of "feasibility, and possibility of planning, in men's reproductive lives" (contrasting grouping; existing actual groups).