ABSTRACT
Procreation is important for social acceptance, family honour, and lineage preservation and is highly regarded especially in traditional societies. Childlessness is a globally prevalent issue that affects a person’s social, psychological, and financial well-being. In traditional societies, childlessness has put extensive psychosocial and emotional burden that may affect the overall social functioning of couples in society. Childless couples truly affect their daily activities and filial obligations due to a wide range of associated negative emotions of childless stigma. This study aimed to develop and validate a Scale on Social Obligation (SOS) for childless couples. The study comprises 211 childless couples who have no child after two years of marriage. The SOS for childless couples was developed using theoretical foundations of the concept of family system Theory, social role theory, symbolic interactionism theory, role conflict and role strain theory. There were 09 items derived from theoretical literature that purely test the social and filial responsibilities of childless couples. Internal consistency or reliability of SOS was high at 0.955 and factors analysis confirm all 9 items. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) also explored that these nine items belong to one group. Further, convergent and divergent validity has also been observed through EFA. Overall, results suggest that the SOS has good reliability and validity, which can contribute toward the explanation of social obligations practiced by childless couples. It would be helpful for future studies to measure the social obligations of this situation. It also helps in planning interventional studies for upgrading the reproductive health of childless couples.
