Child-related value structures of East- and West-German mothers

Abstract

According to the first cross-cultural Value-of-Children study conducted in the 1970s the reasons why people want to have children can be characterized as economically, socially, and emotionally motivated. Results showed that in rather traditional and collectivistic cultures in addition to emotional motives economic and social motives for having children played an important role while in highly industrialized and individualistic cultures emotional motives prevailed. One aim of the new international Value-of-Children study is to explore if and in what way child-related value structures have changed within the last 30 years. In the present study, child-related value structures of N = 104 East-German and N = 107 West-German mothers of adolescent children were compared applying the method of Latent-Class-Analysis. While East-German mothers grew up in an environment emphasizing collectivistic values in the former GDR, West-German mothers were socialized according to more individualistic values. The present study investigates whether different socialization experiences of East- and West-German mothers are still relevant for child-related value structures 12 years after the reunification of the country. The analysis was carried out in four steps. First, appropriate items representing economic, social, and emotional values of children were selected through factor analysis. Second, analyses for each sample assessed the appropriate latent-class solution of child-related value structures separately for East- and West-German mothers. Third, in a comparative analysis it was tested if the resulting latent classes were equivalent across samples. Finally, the class sizes indicating the percentage of mothers belonging to specific latent classes were compared. Results indicated that the child-related value structures of East- and West-German mothers were very similar. In both samples the emotional value of children was the main motive for having children. A large majority of East- and West-German mothers belonged to a latent class where emotional values for having children were very important and social as well as economic values were not important.