goals in reproductive decision making

Abstract

This paper presents a model of fertility decision making in which goals, plans, and expectations organize the cultural knowledge used in deciding on the number and timing of children for Western Samoan village women. Coals, plans, and expectations coalesce into scenarios that depict the imagined consequences of a course of actions under consideration by the decision maker. These scenarios are loosely connected to one another in a life sketch that links the major life goals of the decision maker, [decision making, knowledge systems, goals, fertility behavior, Samoa]