Knowledge and Attitude of Scheduled Castes of Haryana towards Small Family Norms across Different Age Groups

The government of India launched a family welfare programme, whose main objective was to spread the knowledge of family planning methods and to develop among the people an attitude favourable for adoption of contraceptives. The present study was conducted in a multi-caste village and a total of 200 respondents were selected to assess the knowledge and attitude of scheduled castes families towards small family norms. The main objective of the study was to find the role of age in changing the mindset of people on adoption of small family norms in the scheduled castes families. It was found that all respondents had heard about small family norms and they wanted to adopt small family norms for the reason of having only two children. Age significantly enhanced the knowledge level of respondents about small family norms. Forty per cent of the respondents were in the age group of 25-35 years. Nearly half of the respondents (45.00%) belonging to 15-25 years of age group were having moderately low level of knowledge regarding small family norms. Near about three-fifth of the respondents (56.9%) of 35-45 years age category were having neutral attitude towards small family norms. On the other hand, half of the respondents (49.5%) in the age group of 15-25 year were having small size of family (0-4). It was observed that younger age respondents were having high level of knowledge as compared to elder age category. Similarly with increasing age the attitude towards small family norms were moving toward favourableness till 45 years. It was concluded that age favourably contribute to the knowledge and attitude towards small family norms.