Social Construction of the Policies of Increasing of Childbearing and Leading Obstacles: A Case Study of Internet Users

As a social behavior, childbearing is one of the issues that has been increasingly appealing to the media over the last decade. This research seeks to study the social construction of the policies of increasing of childbearing and leading obstacles in the media. The sample consists of 705 Internet users of Iranian news websites. The research methodology is based on quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Among the related published news, 5 news with the largest audience were selected for content analysis. Quantitative content analysis of users’ feedback revealed that 95.7% of the comments were critical, 0.7% were passive and 3.6% were positive about the interpretation of barriers to childbearing. The most important issues arising from qualitative content analysis were “increasing erosion of institutional trust and the failure of demographic policies”, “mismanagement of the current population”, “psychologic feeling of insecurity towards the future of children”, “incoherence and instability in population policies”, “changing attitudes”, “emphasis on quality instead of quantity”, and “extreme materialism”. The final category was “institutionalization of low childbearing”, which can semantically cover research findings. Based on the results, it can be stated that although the users’ critical approach to childbearing barriers is directed at policymakers and public officials, change in attitudes and behavior of people has a more significant role in the institutionalization of low childbearing in society. This means that the realization of population policies requires that policymakers pay attention to institutionalized behavioral patterns among people.