Cultural Competency - Multicultural Health Generalizations: Greek
Greek Fertility Beliefs and Practices
- In American Greek populations, limiting family size is stressed. The trend in Greece for smaller families has been noted since at least the turn of the century.
- In large part, this decrease has resulted from the desire of parents to provide adequately for their children and to have them educated so they can achieve professional status (Friedl, 1962).
- The method of limiting pregnancies has changed from control of gestation to control of conception.
- In Greece, abortions were not legal but were commonly performed by physicians. In the United States, a wide variety of birth control measures, such as intrauterine devices, birth control pills, and condoms are now used (Tripp-Reimer, 1982, as cited in Purnell, L. D., & Paulanka, B. J., 1998).
- The Greek Orthodox Church has issued encyclicals expressing strong disapproval of birth control; however, each local priest may interpret these differently. Although the attitude of the church is generally lenient and practical with regard to birth control, abortion is still regarded as murder.
- Furthermore, adoption is rare among Greeks, both in Greece and in the United States.
Source: Purnell, L. D., & Paulanka, B. J. (1998). Transcultural health care: A culturally competent approach. Philadelphia, PA: F. A. Davis Company.
