Introduction: The process of postponing childbearing has increased significantly in recent decades. Therefore, paying attention to delaying childbearing is of particular importance, as this issue can have wide-ranging individual, social, and economic consequences. The present study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Scale of Motives for Postponing Parenthood.
Method: This was a standardization and validation study conducted in Isfahan, Iran. The statistical population included all married students attending Isfahan and Medical Sciences Universities in the academic year 2024-2025. A Purposive Sampling method was used to select 400 participants , comprising 246 females and 154 males. The research instrument was the 18-item Scale of Motives for Postponing Parenthood, which includes 18 statements across six dimensions: Feeling of uncertainty and incompetence, self-focus, Parenthood as a burden, fear of change, Financial security concerns, and Worry about a child’s future. The validity of the scale was examined using content, convergent, and factorial validity methods, while its reliability was assessed using internal consistency and split-half reliability methods.
Findings: Data analysis was performed using SPSS and AMOS version 26. The results of the data analysis revealed the identification of six dimensions: uncertainty, self-focus, parental burden, fear of change, financial security concerns, and child's future concerns. Factor analysis results indicated that the eigenvalues for the principal component analysis were above 1 for all six factors, which together explained 86.73% of the scale's variance. The split-half coefficient for the first half of the data (9 items) was 0.786, and for the second half (9 items) was 0.768, with a correlation between the two halves of 0.814. These findings suggest desirable internal consistency for the Scale of Motives for Postponing Parenthood. After determining the scale's dimensions, The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.86 for the overall scale, and for the subscales it ranged from 0.74 to 0.96. According to the results of the first-order confirmatory factor analysis, all indices (PNFI = 0.74, CMIN/DF = 1.06, RMSEA = 0.03, IFI = 0.99, CFI = 0.99, and GFI = 0.96) confirmed the fit of the six-factor model.
Conclusion: the findings of the present study indicate that the Persian version of the scale of motives for Postponing Parenthood Possesses adequate validity and reliability and can be used as a suitable tool for assessing motivations for Postponing Parenthood.