Voluntary Childlessness

A lot of later life care is centred on the family. A member of a family, usually an adult daughter or son, informally care for an older parent. Families often include people who are biological kin but who hold a similar status – ‘fictive kin’. For example, a long-term neighbour or friend from school might be known as an Aunty or Uncle. Often the biological child or ‘fictive kin’ is the ‘go-between’ between older parent(s) and formal care services. They perform an essential role in maintaining the dignity and independence of the older person(s) and facilitate access into and out of care services. However, over the last few decades there has been a change in the shape of families. This change is linked to long-term decline in fertility rate, the rise in the age of mortality, economics, increase in divorce rate and stepfamilies. Not only are families smaller than they once were but there is an increase in number of people ageing without children.

Growing older is hard to make sense of. Opposing perspectives are presented on everything from individual to population ageing, and there is widespread ambivalence towards many aspects of ageing. Positioning theory is a research approach that can tolerate such ambiguity and provides a clear, useful framework to make sense of research data, while doing justice to its complexity. It is starting to be used in gerontology; the aim of this paper is to give gerontologists the tools and impetus to use it more. The positioning triad is outlined, comprising positions (how we position ourselves and others within a single conversation or across a lifetime), storylines (the individual and social narratives which furnish those positions), and the speech acts (and acts of research) through which storylines and positions are enacted. In addition, considering the rights and duties associated with different positions and storylines can usefully illuminate some of the tensions around competing positions on ageing. Worked examples from a qualitative study on childless older people (38 participants aged 63 to 93) in terms of their positioning of childlessness, views on residential care, and positioning of emotional support show how the complexity of such diverse topics can be usefully studied using a positioning theory framework.

Freedom is an often mentioned motive for remaining childfree. However, there is a lack of systematic approaches attempting to disentangle the situated meaning of freedom in voluntary childless women's lives. This article draws on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 21 Swedish childfree women in order to further research how they understand and define freedom. The analysis identifies two different discourses of freedom relevant for the construction of the childfree position. The first discourse includes positive experiences of freedom aspects that the childfree women enjoyed in their everyday lives. This discourse also defines freedom as part of a deep-rooted identity that also involves other life choices, besides rejecting motherhood. The second discourse comprises negative opinions about children as risk, motherhood as time-consuming and parents as "trapped". The article contextualizes these discourses within the contemporary Swedish welfare society.

In Philippine culture, it is the norm to marry and have children. People often say that life is more fulfilling when you have kids and that having children may either affect marital satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to find whether there is a significant difference between the marital satisfaction of couples with children and couples without children using four domains --- communication, financial management, leisure activities and sexual intimacy. The researchers used purposive sampling and quota sampling in identifying its respondents residing in Pamplona Tres, Las Pinas City. The instrument used is ENRICH: Marital Satisfaction Scale which is composed of 40 questions that are divided into four domains and t-test of Indepence were used to identify the significant difference on marital satisfaction of both groups using a 0.05 critical value. Couples with children (N-24) and couples without children (N-24) were both given a set of questionnaire to distinguish their marital satisfaction with their spouses. Overall results showed that there is no significant difference in marital satisfaction of both couples with children and couples without children, however, communication plays a big factor in the marital satisfaction of couples without children having only an average score of satisfaction.

This article reports from the first studies on voluntary childlessness in Sweden and addresses a so far neglected issue -the embodied experiences of childfree women. These childfree women reject and resist pronatalist understandings that conflate being a woman with being a mother. However, instead of explaining their childlessness by external factors, mentioned in previous research, the interviewed women created a positive feminine identity separated from motherhood with reference to their 'silent bodies', i.e. bodies without a biological urge to reproduce. Reducing voluntary childlessness to a mere result of biological determinism, the article argues, establishes a legitimate, natural position, less provocative and stigmatized in a pronatalist society. Nevertheless, paradoxically, drawing on biological determinism both challenges and reinstates pronatalism as it builds on the simultaneous acceptance of, and detachment from, the biological reproductive urge. The study hence highlights how persistent the social and cultural link between motherhood and womanhood is, but also how this relationship can be challenged.

People who are voluntarily childless, or “childfree,” face considerable stigma. Researchers have begun to explore how these individuals respond to stigma, usually focusing on interpersonal stigma management strategies. We explored participants’ responses to stigma in a way that is cognisant of broader social norms and gender power relations. Using a feminist discursive psychology framework, we analysed women’s and men’s computer-assisted communication about their childfree status. Our analysis draws attention to “identity work” in the context of stigma. We show how the strategic use of “choice” rhetoric allowed participants to avoid stigmatised identities and was used in two contradictory ways. On the one hand, participants drew on a “childfree-by-choice script,” which enabled them to hold a positive identity of themselves as autonomous, rational, and responsible decision makers. On the other hand, they mobilised a “disavowal of choice script” that allowed a person who is unable to ...

This article employs participant definitional analysis, sensitized with feminist poststructuralism and critical ethnography, to understand three identity construction processes that members of childfree LiveJournal communities participate in: (a) naming childfreedom, (b) negotiating childfreedom, and (c) enacting childfreedom. I argue that childfree identities are contested and sometimes activist. Ultimately, I call for scholars to reconsider the definition of childfree to account for the complex and nuanced identities constructed by individuals who identify as such.

Today I'm presenting some of the preliminary findings of a study about voluntary childlessness conducted with Indian, Polish, and fellow South African collaborators. Voluntary childlessness is also frequently referred to as being childless by choice or childfree. The term childfree (as opposed to 'childless') is intended to show that not having children "can be an active and fulfilling choice" i , and to indicate agency and freedom from social obligation. The distinguishing feature of voluntary childlessness is the deliberate avoidance of parenthood, and this is precisely what opens up childfree people, especially married heterosexuals, to greater stigma than the temporarily or involuntarily childless, since it is seen as willing and deliberate deviation from the norm ii .

Family scholars have explored in depth how and why some women choose to never have children. However, some childless-by-choice (also termed childfree or voluntarily childless) women—who have declared their desire and intention to never have children—ultimately become mothers because of changes in choice or circumstance. Through a qualitative analysis of interviews with mothers who once articulated themselves as permanently childless by choice, this article presents three facets of agency in women's stories about childbearing transformations: accidental conception, ambiguous desire, and purposeful decision. Participant interviews indicated that each facet of agency was enabled and constrained by multiple individual , relational, and cultural considerations, including self-described biological urges, partners' childbearing desires and intentions, and cultural stigma against abortion. Pathways from childless by choice to mother often encompass multiple facets of agency and include movements in and out of various fertility desires and intentions before conceiving.

Gender studies and post-constructivist feminist theory are left with a gap in the literature when it comes to motherhood and childlessness. Where liberal feminism has increased the focus on women’s autonomy and individuality in society, in popular culture a post-feminist turn tells women to adhere to traditional gender norms and to believe that their struggle for equality is already over. This thesis explores depictions of childless female characters in contemporary North American ‘women’s cinema’: movies written and directed by women. More specifically, it thematically analyses the films The Forty-Year-Old Version, Nomadland and Promising Young Woman. It continues on a study conducted by Diana Ross (1998) which explores depictions of childless women in 67 popular American films. Her findings show that though the portrayals have become less stereotypical over time, they still hold certain tenacious preconceptions about childless women. These include the belief that childless women are lonely, cold-hearted, and mentally instable people. To see whether similar prejudices come up in the contemporary world of film which increasingly includes female writers, directors, and leads, this thesis asks the question: “How are childless women portrayed in contemporary American films directed by women?”. The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the meanings attributed to childlessness among women in American society. Through a thematic analysis, the shared patterns of each character portrayal are explored. Primary attention is paid to the protagonists’ behavior, environment, interaction with others, and appearance. It finds that female directors depict more of childless women’s reality, which includes judgments from their direct environment and a newly found freedom to become downwardly mobile in their careers. The childless protagonists are portrayed as strong, independent women, who value their freedom and autonomy. Still, they struggle with economic precarity, a lack of stable romantic relationships and mental instability as a result of grief. Regardless of their empowering individuality, prospects of them changing the system beyond their personal situation remain out of sight. Additionally, the protagonists’ own perception of their childlessness is only superficially discussed. These findings suggest that comparably to feminist academic literature, women’s cinema in the U.S. is liberally ‘avoiding’ motherhood.

Although sterilization is the most common and effective form of birth control available, childfree individuals often report difficulty actually obtaining the procedure. The ideological and material constraints that impede access have been well documented, including physicians' pronatalist perceptions that childless women will regret sterilization when they mature or meet the right partner. However, researchers have demonstrated that childfree women experience low levels of regret after sterilization, indicating that physicians' reluctance is empirically unfounded. In order to mitigate physicians' hesitancy, childfree individuals organize and communicate online in order to share health-related information, seek support, and engage in identity work to more effectively procure the procedure. The current study contributes to critical health, interpersonal, and family communication conversations by employing performative face theory to study online interactions on the childfree subreddit, the largest and most active online forum dedicated to child freedom. Through critical-qualitative analysis of a cross-section of subreddit posts about sterilization, this study demonstrates how subreddit discourse draws upon ideological and metaphorical associations to articulate the fixed childfree subjectivity, which rejects negative significations of regret in favor of positive notions of repair and permanence. Users further engage in subversive meta-facework, or facework presented online about facework users engaged in offline, which maintains shared face and denaturalizes taken-for-granted linkages between gender, identity, and par-enthood. Implications for health activism across individual, relational, communal, and cultural levels are discussed.

The aim of the article is to show the socio-cultural conditions influencing the ways of expressing emotions and feelings by mothers. It presents the results of the analysis of the Internet discourse on negative attitudes towards motherhood and/or a child/children. The text is built on the author's research on the issue of "regretting motherhood" and is based on a qualitative analysis of the content-blog entries/posts: nieperfekcyjnie.pl [notperfect.pl], matkawygodna.pl [slackermom. pl], mamwatpliwosc.pl [ihaveadoubt.pl], and in the group-Internet forum-Żałuję rodzicielstwa [I regret parenthood]. The theoretical basis were the concepts included in the sociology of symbolic interactionism.

This article reports from the first studies on voluntary childlessness in Sweden and addresses a so far neglected issue – the embodied experiences of childfree women. These childfree women reject and resist pronatalist understandings that conflate being a woman with being a mother. However, instead of explaining their childlessness by external factors, mentioned in previous research, the interviewed women created a positive feminine identity separated from motherhood with reference to their ‘silent bodies’, i.e. bodies without a biological urge to reproduce. Reducing voluntary childlessness to a mere result of biological determinism, the article argues, establishes a legitimate, natural position, less provocative and stigmatized in a pronatalist society. Nevertheless, paradoxically, drawing on biological determinism both challenges and reinstates pronatalism as it builds on the simultaneous acceptance of, and detachment from, the biological reproductive urge. The study hence highlights how persistent the social and cultural link between motherhood and womanhood is, but also how this relationship can be challenged.

The purpose of this concept analysis is to explore childlessness and provide understanding to professionals involved in the field of infertility. Walker and Avant’s method was used to identify descriptions, antecedents, consequences, and empirical referents of the concept. A model with related and contrary cases was developed. The analysis was based on the definition of the term in major dictionaries in the Greek, Lithuanian, Finnish, Maltese, and Turkish languages, while further literature searches utilized the Web of Science, PubMed, PsychInfo, Medline, Google Scholar, and National Thesis Databases. The literature search was limited to papers/books published in the authors’ national languages and English. As a result, childlessness is defined as the absence of children in the life of an individual, and this can be voluntary or involuntary. However, the deeper analysis of the concept may be preceded and amplified through cultural, psychological, biological, philosophical, theologic...

A book on a crucial yet under-examined issue – women’s choices with regard to motherhood – that compels us to re-think norms that may shrink our lives and its purpose.

Its sources have an eclectic span—narratives of women who refuse to be mothers or choose to be unwed mothers, women who abort pregnancies to adopt children, doulas, sex worker mothers to archives, myths, policies, visuals, an RTI petition, among others. Amrita Nandy deftly joins the dots of what she terms ‘mater-normative’: the social mandate to marry, our collective obsession with birth and biological families, the mushrooming reproductive bazaar, women’s unpaid care work and so on.

The research poses a stream of thought-provoking questions to a culture that confuses ‘female’ with ‘woman’, and ‘woman’ with ‘mother’. Is motherhood a choice? Can women choose to not be mothers? What does voluntary non-motherhood reveal about motherhood and its conditions? How can women act freely within cultural norms?

Its answers speak to theory and practice via a range of maternal outliers who reimagine motherhood and care, and offer a wider canvas of possibilities for living, belonging and caring.

This article focuses on remaining childless as a result of certain choices and constraints (not on becoming childless as a result of outliving children). There are two main aims of this study. First it seeks to reveal whether any specifi c features appear when (temporarily) childless people are compared with those with children in the same cohorts. It also aims to explore what kinds of factors can lead to childlessness (or more precisely, the prolongation of a childless period in life) among those men and women who, according to their self-assessment, were not prevented from having children by their own or their partner's health constraints. The analysis draws on GGS data from the fi rst three waves of the Hungarian panel survey 'Turning Points of the Life Course' conducted in 2001, 2004, and 2008. The focus is on men and women who were childless in 2001 and were still childless in 2008. According to the fi ndings, events directly connected to childbearing, such as having a stable partner or not having a partner, living in cohabitation or in marriage, have more infl uence on decisions about becoming parents than normative expectations , while economic factors (such as having a job) have some impact mainly on postponing childbearing, but do not seem to infl uence directly whether people will remain childless.

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The purpose of this concept analysis is to explore childlessness and provide understanding to professionals involved in the field of infertility. Walker and Avant's method was used to identify descriptions, antecedents, consequences, and empirical referents of the concept. A model with related and contrary cases was developed. The analysis was based on the definition of the term in major dictionaries in the Greek, Lithuanian, Finnish, Maltese, and Turkish languages, while further literature searches utilized the Web of Science, PubMed, PsychInfo, Medline, Google Scholar, and National Thesis Databases. The literature search was limited to papers/books published in the authors' national languages and English. As a result, childlessness is defined as the absence of children in the life of an individual, and this can be voluntary or involuntary. However, the deeper analysis of the concept may be preceded and amplified through cultural, psychological, biological, philosophical, theological, sociological, anthropological, and linguistic aspects throughout history. These elements presented challenges for childless individuals, ultimately influencing their choices to resort to alternative ways of becoming parents, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), surrogacy, adoption, or other forms of childbearing. Historically, childlessness has been viewed with negative connotations due to its potential impact on the survival of the human species. This negativity can be directed even to individuals who may decide to opt to voluntarily remain childfree. The long-term impact of the experience, both on an individual and collective level, continues to cause pain to those who are involuntarily childless. In conclusion, health professionals and other stakeholders who have a deep understanding of childlessness, including the antecedents and attributes, can minimize the potential negative consequences of those factors contributing to childlessness, whether voluntary or involuntary. In fact, they can capitalize on a powerful impact of change adaptation by providing support to those in their practice to recover the lost homeostasis.

Resumen : En un contexto de transformaciones culturales, económicas y sociales que han experimentado las familias chilenas y de diversos cambios en el marco de la modernidad, el presente artículo analiza las principales motivaciones que expresan un grupo de mujeres profesionales acerca de la decisión de no tener hijos (as). A partir del análisis de las experiencias biográficas y familiares, la deci-sión se presenta en estrecha relación con la conformación de relaciones de pareja más igualitarias en las que se entremezclan prácticas y representaciones que discu-ten los mandatos de género. Entre ellos los significados respecto del trabajo, la pareja, los hijos, el uso del salario y su distribución de tareas dentro del hogar, entre otros. A pesar del interés por construir relaciones más igualitarias, la opción por la no maternidad no asegura el fin de las desigualdades especialmente en relación al reparto de tareas al interior del hogar. Sin embargo, en el grupo estudiado se aprecia un constante interés por construir a una relación más equitativa y propender a una relación distinta a las que ellas conocieron en sus respectivas familias. Palabras claves:No maternidad, relaciones igualitarias, género I don'twant to have children… Continuity and change in partner relationships of young professional women Abstract: In the context of the cultural, economic and social transformations experienced by Chilean families and various changes related to modernity, this article analyzes the main motivations expressed by a group of young professional women regarding the decision not to have children. Based on the analysis of family and life experiences, the decision is presented by them as being closely connected to the development of more equal partner relationships in which practices and representations that challenge gender mandates are intermingled. This includes aspects related to work, one's partner, children, income use and the distribution of household tasks, among others. Despite the interest in building more equal relationships, the decision not to have children does not ensures the end of inequalities, especially in relation to the distribution of household chores. However, the studied group presents

Mentre svela le ambivalenze del desiderio di maternità e mentre afferma che si è donne prima che madri, il libro indaga un tipo di scelta che sembra portare il segno meno: senza figli. E che proprio per la natura negativa di quel segno appare a molti e molte, spesso anche agli occhi delle donne che la compiono, una non scelta, una scelta meno libera dell’altra. Arricchiscono il volume numerose testimonianze di donne che, con sincerità e partecipazione, raccontano la loro storia, coinvolgendo lettrici e lettori nei vari perché di una scelta libera.

Some women who previously told others they never wanted to have children ultimately do become mothers. These women negotiate their own and their children's childbearing identities. Using performative face theory, a critical poststructural interpersonal and family communication theory of identity and difference, this study analyzed intergenerational shifts in parent–child communication between families-of-origin (when participants were children) and families-of-creation (when participants were parents). Most participants described how their parents articulated either pronatalist face threats or antinatalist face support, which constrained possibilities for their childbearing identities. Participants, however, stressed that they have talked or plan to talk to their own children in a different, more neutral-natalist way by sharing their stories, emphasizing childbearing agency, and quietly desiring grandchildren. Negotiations of childbearing face are therefore informed by—and in turn sustain, resist, or sometimes subvert—discursive articulations of power/knowledge that circulate throughout culture about (never) having children.

In a neoliberal and postfeminist context, this article undertakes an analysis of the atypical instances of voluntarily childless heroines on contemporary U.S. network television from 2010 to 2015. Drawing mainly from Diane Negra’s and Angela McRobbie’s work on postfeminist popular culture, and specifically McRobbie’s concept of “double entanglement,” I argue that network television, with rare exceptions, not only avoids representations of female childlessness but also promotes pronatalism, which it associates with neoliberal principles of the market (as illustrated in everything from the booming surrogacy industry to the quest to enroll children at the best private schools, etc.).

Feminist scholars have identified a “motherhood imperative” in Western cultures, when heterosexual women are understood to both want and to have children. However, social shifts have resulted in a decrease in pronatalism as well as an increase in social recognition of the parenting desires of same-sex parents. Despite a resurgence of interest in childfree identities, research to date has predominantly focused on heterosexual women’s explanations for being childfree and their experiences of marginalization. Our aim in the current study was to explore how childfree heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and queer women negotiate their childfree lives and identities in the context of their personal and social relationships within changing cultural contexts. Data from 23 interviews with women in the United Kingdom, who responded to a call for childfree participants, were thematically analyzed. We constructed two themes: (1) Never say never? Negotiating being childfree as ever precarious, whic...

В статье проблематизируется недостаток знаний о мужском опыте добровольной бездетности — причем не только в отечественном исследовательском контексте, но и в глобальном. В своих рассуждениях автор стремится объяснить, почему разговор о мужских опытах бездетности затруднен, а также повествует о том, какие изменения произошли в этом отношении за последние 20 лет. В завершение предлагается несколько направлений для дальнейших исследований.

This article applies a media frame analysis in order to highlight representations of voluntary childlessness in Swedish newspapers. The analysis identifies how childfree couples are framed as carefree, fulfilled and content. Childfree women on the other hand are framed as struggling with problems, stereotypes and doubts. Childfree men are absent and implicitly framed as unconcerned and unaffected. Even in the only newspaper article that draws attention to men and voluntary childlessness the voice of the childfree man is absent. Instead of a childfree man a father of six is interviewed and presented as an exception. To explain these different frames this article argues that gender stereotypes, maternalism, pronatalism and heteronormativity influence who is constructed as newsworthy when news media report on voluntary childlessness. While the feminine identity and women's social role is conflated with motherhood, the link between fatherhood and masculinity is weaker. Because men's parenthood roles are indistinct so are men's roles as nonparents. As a result a father to a daughter in a previous relationship can be represented as part of a carefree and childfree couple. Consequently, childfree women are more newsworthy than childfree men, and a father of six is more newsworthy than a non-father.

The way in which women decide to have children is affected by many processes, including personal, social, historical, and political. Maternity is seen as an inevitable part of women's happiness and a complement to their femininity. In traditional Turkish family structure, femininity is sanctified through maternity, and the status of women in the family and society is shaped by whether they have children or not. The status of women began to change with urbanization and also by virtue of women's increasing participation in the workforce. The idea began to be expressed that maternity is not necessarily the fate of women, and given that it is a preference, which includes not only satisfaction but also difficulty, childlessness might be preferred. This study aims to examine the voluntary childlessness preferences of women. For this purpose, the study group consisted of four married women, who currently do not have children and who prefer not to have children. The age of the participants varies between 30 and 40 years and they are all voluntary. The study is designed according to descriptive phenomenology design of qualitative research methodology. The data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews. In the analysis of the data, Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenological analysis steps were followed. During the interviews, it was seen that participants emphasized the concepts of responsibility and care giving. As a result of the analysis, it appears that the data are combined under the following themes: the meaning of maternity, the meaning of the concept of maternity in social circles, the meaning of not wanting a child, effects of voluntary childlessness, the decision of voluntary childlessness, social reactions to voluntary childlessness, and dilemmas experienced in the face of voluntary childlessness. It was observed that instinctive attitudes about maternity and perceptions on child bearing are still ongoing, that the pressure of being a mother has been preserved in the social environment, and that voluntarily childfree women define childlessness as freedom in many areas of life. With this study we make a contribution to the literature by attending to the voice of voluntarily childless women in the context of a woman's right to decide on her own body.

Mentre nella vita reale il tasso di fecondità continua a scendere e sono sempre di più le donne che scelgono di non diventare madri, nei contesti di socializzazione e nell’immaginario la non fecondità stupisce, interroga, a volte infastidisce. Si apre una possibilità imprevista fino a pochi decenni fa: che la maternità sia considerata un’esperienza tra le altre che alcune donne potrebbero non desiderare abbastanza o non desiderare affatto. Ed è questa la possibilità esplorata nel testo.

В данной статье оспаривается корректность употребления термина «чайлдфри» (от англ. «childfree») исследователями, занятыми изучением граждан, сознательно отказывающихся от рождения детей. Автор подробно рассматривает смысловую нагрузку данного термина, прослеживая его укорененность в политико-идеологическом поле. Одновременно предлагается к рассмотрению более нейтральное, но и более емкое понятие «сознательная бездетность», выделяются три его базовые характеристики. В заключение автор проговаривает основные перспективы употребления термина «чайлдфри» в научном дискурсе, тем самым еще раз переопределяя его семантические границы.

Ricordo chiaramente quando dissi a mia madre all'età di 12 anni che non volevo bambini. Dalla sua reazione compresi di averla shoccata, ma credo che lei pensasse quanto io fossi giovane e che non sapessi ancora nulla. Io non ricordo che sia stata per me una decisione sofferta. Sapevo solo che non volevo bambini, e questo era tutto.

March sees the first of four seminars on ‘New Frontiers of Family’, a British Psychological Society sponsored series that aims to examine the psychological implications of emerging forms of family in the UK – those beyond genetic relatedness, and those beyond the nuclear family. As two of the series organisers, we here explore two topics: conception through embryo donation and voluntary childlessness, both of which are highly topical in the context of declining birth rates and increases in the use of assisted reproduction in Britain. We provide an overview of the research, as well as the limitations of the current evidence base.