ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a sociodemographic analysis of large families based on a special sample survey of mothers of large families in Tashkent. Family and marital traditions form within the framework of an ethnic community and are therefore very conservative. It must be noted that women with a higher or a specialized secondary education who participate actively in social production and have a moral incentive to work are still more inclined to family planning. Rural women of indigenous nationalities characteristically display an unconscious orientation toward large families, and the birthrate of the great majority approaches the physiological limit. The great majority of rural women in the Central Asian republics have large families, and at the same time, they are almost all employed in social production. The peoples of Central Asia have a tradition of large families with strong economic and sociopsychological roots that will continue to nourish the region's "demographic tree" for many years to come.
