CAREER CONSIDERATIONS AND FERTILITY INTENTIONS AMONG THE FEMALE DOCTORS WORKING IN THE TERTIARY CARE HOSPITALS IN LAHORE, PAKISTAN. A QUALITATIVE APPROACH

Abstract

Background: The empirical literatures suggest that valuing the career triggers working women to delay pregnancy and have fewer births. The career advancement opportunities motivate the female doctors to give higher importance to their careers, and are seen to be responsible for low fertility. Therefore, the career preferences among working women have substantially changed the family formation patterns. Objective: Therefore, there is a need to explore the connection between career considerations and fertility intentions among the female doctors working in the tertiary care hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan. Materials and Methods: The nature of the study was cross-sectional, and an exploratory qualitative research design was employed. Regarding the area of study, two tertiary public hospitals were selected, such as Mayo Hospital, Lahore, and Jinnah Hospital, Lahore. The target population was the married female doctors working in the Gynecology, Pediatrics, Gastroenterology, and Ophthalmology departments. A sample size of 50 female doctors (25 from each hospital) was recruited under the eligibility criteria. Before the data collection, ethical approval was accorded from the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) of the concerned hospitals. The privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent of the participants were also ensured. The semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to get answers of three puzzles (i) how do career considerations shape the fertility intentions among the female doctors working at tertiary care hospitals in Lahore, Punjab? (ii) How does the reduced fertility advance the career of female doctors working at tertiary care hospitals in Lahore, Punjab? (iii) What career constraints do female doctors face while performing the work-role and childbearing? The thematic analysis was conducted to establish the themes, sub-themes, and codes from the transcripts. Results: Regarding the demographic information, the mean current age of the respondents was 35 years. The mean age of the respondents at the time of marriage was 26 years. The average number of children was 1.8 per female doctor working in the tertiary care hospitals. The thematic analysis shows that female doctors value career advancement, and it shapes their fertility intentions. According to the female doctors, combining career considerations and childbearing creates work-family incompatibility. Therefore, they intended to have fewer children. The themes that emerged from the data regarding the career considerations and fertility intentions were valuing career, competing devotions, absorptiveness of job, work-family incompatibility, full-time dual earner couple, supportive behavior of husband and in-laws, and work-family reconciliation, gendered division of labor, more time for childcare, and less career considerations. Conclusion: The findings of the study suggest that career considerations shape the fertility intentions of female doctors working in the tertiary care hospitals, Lahore. Just to keep the work-family balance between the two, they tended to have lower fertility. In the pursuit of career-family compatibility, they prefer to have fewer children.