Critique Study Childbearing - Assignment Example

Quantitative research as well as qualitative design was employed in this study where quantitative data concerning different attributes of the sample population, which in this case was unmarried women, were derived accordingly. Quantitative data about different attributes of mothers: married, single or unmarried were gathered from 1990 to 1995 (Musick 922). At the same time, qualitative approach where secondary literature regarding the subject of the research was also necessary in order to edify the entire research and to achieve the purpose of the study.

The attributes that the study sought include mother’s age, mother’s education, number of births, percentage of births, cohabitation, ethnicity of mothers and parity of births (Musick 922 – 923). These variables could best be presented in quantitative data format for proper analysis. In order to effectively derive the required variables such as “race and ethnicity, education, cohabitation, type of family” among others, there was need to designed closed questionnaires that would enhance collection of quantitative data in the survey from which Musick derived its secondary data especially the quantitative data (Musick 922). . The literature review and the background of the research could best be presented after reviewing various related articles about “Planned and unplanned childbearing among un married women” (Musick 915).

On the other hand, data was also necessary in the research, where the author of the article decided to derive quantitative data from survey conducted on the related subject between 1990 and 1995. It therefore implies that both approaches were not only necessary in the research but they were important because the combination of both approaches were successful in achieving the objective of the study as well as to address the hypothesis of the research. The hypothesis about the effects of different attributed of unmarried women such as “childhood family structure, education, race and ethnicity and cohabitation” with respect to unplanned and planned childbearing could best be tested successfully by analysis of the quantitative data derived from the survey on which the research is based (Musick 926).

The study had a number of implications, which include existence of a significant relationship between education and non-marital fertility, significant association between cohabitation and fertility as well as time having a bearing in childbearing whether planned or unplanned (Musick 925 - 926). The study indicated or implied that education has a bearing in both unplanned and planned childbearing whereby the more educated the women became the more the reduction on the unplanned and planned fertility.

For instance, women that had attained education of high school and above were found to exhibit greater limiting effect on births whether planned or unplanned. However, it was established that cohabiting