جامعه شناسی کاربردی (Sep 2017)
Students' Attitude Towards Marriage and Factors Affecting It
Abstract
Introduction The aim of this research is to study female students' attitude towards marriage and factors affecting it in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Marriage is a basic institution in all societies and, which prepares the conditions for forming families and reproduction as one of most basic functions of society (Larson and Holman 1994; Higgins et al 2002). Not only does marriage have positive influences on physical and mental health of individuals, but it also plays a great role in transmitting to adulthood. As marriage is not isolated from specific conditions of time and location, it has its own characteristics in any given society (Shoa Kazemi and Harandi 2010:112). The Iranian society in recent years, along with changes in technology and relationships with other nations, has undergone many changes. Values and attitudes to the family and marriage are a part of these changes. When it come to women's role in different aspects of society, studying their values and attitudes become important. Changes in the structure of education, women's employment, improvements in their professional skills and diffusion of feminist ideas, all have led women to reflect on their traditional roles and identities. For example, they ask for equal rights in all aspects and want more freedom in mating. Materials and Methods This study is a cross-sectional survey with descriptive goals. The data was gathered by a researcher-made questionnaire from a population of 13181 female students in 2014 in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. The sample includes 374 students who were selected using stratified random sampling method. Discussion of Results and Conclusions The results of the study show that our main hypothesis, which says “there is a significant relationship between perceptions of gender role clichés and attitudes towards marriage” is confirmed. This means that people who easily internalize and accept gender role clichés have more traditional attitudes toward marriage and vice versa. Likewise, the results also show that there is a significant relationship between respondents' religious background with their attitude towards marriage. This means that those with more religiosity, hold more traditional attitudes toward marriage, and those who have lower levels of religiosity, are more likely to have a modern attitude towards marriage. The findings also show that there is significant relationship between attitude towards marriage and the variable of cost-benefit opportunity, namely, the respondents who believe marriage is a cost-benefit exchange, have a more modern attitude towards marriage. On the contrary, those respondents who believed marriage cannot be looked at as a cost-benefit transaction, have a more traditional attitude towards marriage. The result of multiple regression analysis show that the amount of F is equal to 357/05 and the level o the significance is 0/000. Therefore, the model in its entirety is significant. By comparing the standardized regression coefficients (Beta) outputs of the multiple regression model for, we realized that religiosity has the most powerful effect on the dependent variable. The second most powerful independent variable is the variable of cost-benefit opportunity. Both of these variables had the highest effect on attitude towards marriage in a path analysis model as well. In sum this research show that student's attitude toward marriage is more traditional, when religiosity is the strongest predictor of attitude towards marriage.
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