Does the Reason Matter? Variations in Childlessness Concerns Among U.S. Women

Does the reason why women have no children matter with regard to level of childlessness concerns? Reasons include biomedical barriers, situational barriers, delaying motherhood, and choosing to be childfree. The concept of “childlessness concerns” captures the idea that holidays and family gatherings are difficult because of not having children or feeling left out or sad that others have children. Life course and identity theories guided the structural equation model analyses of a representative sample of 1,180 U.S. women without children from the National Survey of Fertility Barriers. The results indicated that women with the least control over pregnancy, those with biomedical barriers, had the highest childlessness concerns. As hypothesized, the association between reasons and childlessness concerns was mediated by the identity‐relevant measure, importance of motherhood. Contrary to the authors' hypothesis, the association was not mediated by social messages to have children. Thus, it is primarily involuntarily childless women who have high childlessness concerns.     

Religious homogamy and voluntary childlessness in Canada

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of religious affiliation, religious homogamy, religiosity, and religious marriage on voluntary and temporary childlessness and to compare childlessness patterns among Canadian-born and foreign-born women. Data were obtained from the 1984 Canadian Fertility Survey of 2863 women aged 18-49 years who were married to their first husband or living in consensual unions. The sample included 216 childless women, of whom 98 were voluntarily childless and 91 were temporarily childless. Analysis performed with probit maximum likelihood techniques and bivariate forms revealed that homogamous Catholics were less likely to remain temporarily childless but more likely to be voluntarily childless than non-Catholics. Multivariate analysis found that age, marriage age, education, and husband's income were statistically significantly related to voluntary childlessness. The likelihood of childlessness was also influenced by young age, later marriage, higher education, employment, women with husbands with lower income, and women who attend church services less frequently. Religious homogamous marriage was unrelated to childlessness. Frequent church attendance decreased the odds of deciding not to have children. Neither Catholic homogamy nor non-Catholic homogamy had an important effect after interaction terms for both religiosity and homogamy were included. Childlessness among foreign-born women was significantly more likely among those whose husbands had lower income, nonreligious women, and non-Catholic women who married heterogamously. Canadian women's childlessness was significantly related to education, husband's income, religiosity, and non-Catholic homogamy.     

Increasing Childlessness in Germany and Japan: Toward a Childless Society?

Abstract: This paper focuses on childlessness in Germany and Japan and its sociological meanings in family formation in postmodern societies. First, it shows the trends of fertility decline and increasing childlessness, and clarifies the similarities and differences in both countries, by comparing parity composition, educational attainment, and other socioeconomic correlates of childlessness. Second, using the data of attitudinal surveys, such as the 2003 Population Policy Acceptance Study (PPAS) in Germany and the 13th National Fertility Survey (JNFS; 2005) in Japan, the reasons for having no children are observed. Third, referring to the discussions of German scholars, it tries to explain the sociological meanings of childlessness and to describe the development toward a childless society (even if it's demographically not sustainable) as one of the possible consequences of the Second Demographic Transition. Important findings are as follows: (1) In Germany the fertility decline began early in the mid-1960s but in Japan later from mid-1970s so that the increase of childlessness has been a little delayed. The proportion of childless women in Western Germany increased to 28% for the 1967 cohort. In Japan, it has increased to 12.7% for the 1960 cohort, but is expected to reach 30% for the 1970 cohort. (2) The educational gap in childlessness is clearly observed in Germany; however, this is not so simple in Japan. Corresponding with the increase of childlessness, the desired number of children in average is declining. The emergence of a child-free culture is observed in Germany by PPAS, but not yet in Japan by JNFS. (3) Polarization may proceed further in both countries, between childless people and people with many children.     

Early Adult Obesity and U.S. Women's Lifetime Childbearing Experiences

Literature from multiple disciplines suggests that women who are obese during early adulthood may accumulate social and physiological impediments to childbearing across their reproductive lives. This led the authors to investigate whether obese young women have different lifetime childbearing experiences than leaner peers by analyzing data from 1,658 female participants in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Study sample members were nulliparous women ages 20–25 in 1982. The authors examined their childbearing experiences between 1982 and 2006 and found that young women who were obese at baseline had higher odds of remaining childless and increased odds of underachieving fertility intentions than young women who were normal weight at baseline. These results suggest that obesity has long‐term ramifications for women's childbearing experiences with respect to whether and how many children women have in general and relative to the number of children they want.     

The Gender Gap in Attitudes About Childlessness in the United States

Acceptance of childlessness has increased since the 1970s, with women reporting greater acceptance than men. Using the National Survey of Families and Households (1987 – 1988; N = 10,648) and the General Social Survey (1994; N =1,395), we examined this gender gap as it relates to both structural and sociocultural factors, including religion, gender attitudes, and other attitudes about gender and family. Women were more likely than men to hold positive attitudes about childlessness, and women’s less traditional attitudes about marriage, gender equality, and women’s employment only partially explained this difference. In the childbearing ages, positive attitudes were strongly related to intentions to remain childless and showed a greater gender gap at higher education levels. The findings highlight important differences in men’s and women’s experiences of family, work, and gender issues.     

Solo-living and childless professional women: Navigating the ‘balanced mother ideal’ over the fertile years

One in five women are childless at midlife, and for an estimated 90 percent of these women, childlessness is not actively chosen. In this article, we explore how solo-living and childless professional women navigate the ‘balanced mother ideal’ over their fertile years and what this means for organizations and organization studies. Drawing on biographical narrative interview data from solo-living professional women in the UK, we argue that identifications with the balanced mother ideal change over the life course as a result of futurity, ambivalence, and suppression of negative emotions—part of the logic of both postfeminism and neoliberal feminism—and the ‘disenfranchized grief’ of contingent childlessness. At the point of late fertility, the absence of alternative social narratives to the balanced mother ideal appears to create a crisis point for childless women, including in the workplace. We conclude our article with recommendations for how organizations can better cater to the needs of this significant, yet largely silenced, demographic group.     

Normative and microeconomic models of voluntary childlessness

Most previous research on voluntary childlessness has used nonrepresentative samples to explore psychological correlates of the decision not to bear children. In contrast, this study uses data from the 1965 National Fertility Study (NFS) to examine the influence of normative and micro‐economic variables on childlessness. The normative and microeconomic theories of fertility are reviewed, and their implications for voluntary childlessness are discussed. A subsample of women aged 20–34 from the 1965 NFS is used to examine the predictive power of these implications. Both normative and microeconomic variables demonstrate some discriminatory power. In particular, both Catholicism and increasing husband's income reduce the probability that a couple will intend to remain childless. It is suggested that further use of normative and microeconomic models and of data sets representative of large populations will significantly advance understanding of voluntary childlessness.     

Maternal struggles and the politics of childlessness under pronatalist Caribbean slavery

ABSTRACT

This article considers the relationship of enslaved and apprenticed women in the Anglophone Caribbean to the embodied experience of childbearing, motherhood, and childlessness. It places this analysis in the context of a discussion of the development and implementation of pronatalist policies in the Anglophone Caribbean during the late period of slavery. It examines the experience of pronatalist policies by enslaved women, using as a case study a microhistory from Jamaica during the apprenticeship period (1834–1848). Although the existence of pronatalist policies gave some women (mothers with large numbers of children) a position from which to claim reduced workloads and other ‘rights’, they made the situation of childless women more difficult. In historians' attention to the struggles of mothers, we have sometimes paid insufficient attention to the perspective of childless and bereaved women.     

How Older People Position Their Late‐Life Childlessness: A Qualitative Study

This research explored how older people describe their paths to late‐life childlessness. In‐depth accounts from 38 childless older people, age 63–93, highlight the complex journeys and diverse meanings of childlessness for male and female participants, single and partnered, including some who had outlived children. Positioning theory is used to show how the conventional voluntary – involuntary binary is insufficient for capturing their experiences. Childlessness was for some an active choice to break a family violence cycle; for others, it was an outcome of social upheaval. It evoked feelings of both grief and relief over time, it was seen as evidence of discernment in being unwilling to parent at any price, or it was something that felt “natural” within a meaningful life. Rates of childlessness are increasing; this research highlights the fact that pathways and meanings of childlessness vary so much that it is unwise to assume that people have similar experiences of nonparenthood, especially in later life.     

Frustrated Fertility: Infertility and Psychological Distress Among Women

Using a random sample of 580 Midwestern women, we test the hypothesis that women who have experienced infertility report higher psychological distress. Approximately one third of our sample reports having experienced infertility sometime in their lives, although the majority of the infertile now have biological children. Drawing hypotheses from identity and stress theories, we examine whether roles or resources condition the effects of infertility or whether its effects are limited to childless women. Infertility combined with involuntary childlessness (including biological and social) is associated with significantly greater distress. For women in this category, the risk of distress is substantial.     

Patterns of Childlessness among Catholic and Non-Catholic Women in the U.S.: A Log-Linear Analysis*

The principal objective of this paper is to conduct a log-linear analysis of patterns of childlessness among Catholic and non-Catholic women in the United States. We address this issue by examining white women between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four, ascertaining whether they are voluntarily, involuntarily, or temporarily childless or childed. Given the long-standing emphasis of the Catholic Church regarding the importance of children in marriage and the family, an emphasis which was not reversed during the Second Vatican Council, we suggest that even after controlling for religious activity and educational attainment, Catholic women should be less disposed than non-Catholic women to choose voluntarily to have no children. We review various aspects of Church doctrine leading to such an hypothesis. Our results do not suggest an “end” to Catholic-non-Catholic differentials in childlessness. Catholic women between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four in 1976 were very far apart from non-Catholic women with respect to the voluntary decision to have no children. And they are also very different from non-Catholic women regarding patterns of involuntary childlessness. These differential patterns of voluntary and involuntary childlessness are discussed and analyzed.     

Voluntary and nonvoluntary childlessness: personality vs. structural implications

"A 'deviant behavior' interpretation of childlessness has led many researchers to view this phenomenon as psychosocial in nature. Married persons who decide to remain childless are seen as having a unique set of personality and behavioral characteristics that go beyond the simple decision not to have children. An alternative explanation for these differences could center around the structural factor of childlessness per se, in that a family with one or more children may be a totally different social system than the dyadic-type relationships which comprise the childless couple. This paper reports research findings from an empirical test of the extent to which a national sample of [U.S.] respondents who are members of voluntary or nonvoluntary childless couples differ in terms of 12 psychosocial characteristics selected either on the basis of past research findings, or predicted on the basis of these findings....Findings showed that the two groups of respondents did strongly differ, but in ways opposite to those predicted on the basis of past research. An argument is presented that these strong, but contrary findings might be better explained by structural, as opposed to psychosocial, factors."     

Effect of childlessness on nursing home and home health care use

This study examines the likelihood of nursing home and home health care use for childless older Americans. Four research questions are addressed: (1) Are the childless elderly at a greater risk of nursing home and home health care use? (2) Is it childlessness per se or not having children with particular characteristics that affects the likelihood of using these formal long-term care services? (3) Does having additional children beyond the first one have a significant effect on the use of these services? (4) Are the effects of childlessness different on the likelihood of nursing home and home health care use? Longitudinal data from the first (1993) and second (1995) waves of the Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old Survey (AHEAD) and multinomial logistic regression models are used for the analyses. Separate models are developed for women and men, each controlling for a variety of demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related characteristics of sample persons. Findings indicate childlessness as an important risk factor, especially for older women's use of nursing home services. Implications of findings for planning for long-term care needs of the baby boom generation are discussed.     

Trends and incidence of childlessness by race: indicators of black progress over three decades

Patterns in childlessness rates for blacks and whites in the U.S. from 1950-1972 were examined using 1940, 1950, and 1960 census data and data from Current Population Reports for 1969 and 1972. Among ever married women, aged 15-49, the proportion of childless black women declined from 29.1%-13.6% from 1940-1972, while the porportion of childless white women declined from 22.9%-14.3% from 1940-1969 and then increased slightly to 15.6% in 1972. The decline in childlessness observed for both blacks and whites during this period was attributable, at least in part, to improved medical care. When age specific rates were examined 2 diverse patterns emerged. For females, aged 15-24, childlessness rates for blacks were lower than for whites throughout 1940-1972, and the differences between blacks and whites increased over time. However, for females, aged 30-39, childlessness rates were higher for blacks than for whites throughout 1940-1972, and the gap between white and black rates decreased over time. In general the data demonstrated a convergence in childlessness patterns for blacks and whites. Childlessness rates were viewed as an indication of social integration. Childlessness is not a norm in American society. The general decline in childless rates among blacks and especially among blacks over 30 years of age indicated that the wider society was serving as a reference group for blacks. Among blacks under 25 years convergence was less apparent and indicated that younger black women were less integrated into the larger society than older black women. On the basis of recent trends it was predicted that convergence between black and white childlessness patterns would continue; however, in view of the upturn in the childlessness rate observed for whites since 1969, it was expected that the childlessness rates for both blacks and whites would increase somewhat in the coming years.     

EDITORIAL

ABSTRACT

Data from Cycle 5 of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) (1995) were analyzed to identify factors that could predict whether a woman 18-44 years of age would ever have sought to adopt a child. Of the 10,019 women in the specified age group overall, 508 (5.1 percent) had ever sought to adopt, including 5.4 percent of white women and 5.2 percent of black women. Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted for all women and for white women and black women separately. Among women who were white, the likelihood of having ever sought to adopt increased under conditions of childlessness, a history of treatment for infertility and surgical sterility for non-contraceptive reasons, non-surgical sterility, or physical difficulty in becoming pregnant (subfecundity), and if the woman was married, older, had some amount of college education, and considered religion very important. Having received assisted reproductive technology treatment also increased the likelihood that women in this group had sought to adopt. The likelihood of having ever sought to adopt increased among black women who were childless, older, and surgically sterile for non-contraceptive reasons, non-surgically sterile, or subfe-cund. However, having been treated for infertility and the presence of “resource” variables (other than age) did not predict that black women would have sought adoption. Among women of all races, having been a foster parent to a child increased the likelihood that the woman had sought to adopt the child when the woman was also childless, had been treated for infertility, was non-surgically sterile or subfecund, and older. Having been a foster parent was a significant predictor among white women who were childless and had ever been treated for infertility. Results are discussed in terms of benefits and limitations of all analyses and in terms of their implications for practice, policy, and research.     

Nuclear family and social capital of refugees in Austria

This article provides insights into the role of the nuclear family for refugees' social capital in Austria, with a focus on gender-specific differences. We use a multimethod approach, based on quantitative data from a survey with 548 refugees from Syria and Afghanistan and semi-structured group discussions (N = 17 informants). In our analysis, we study frequency of contacts in first language and in German, as proxies for the bonding and bridging social capital. Marital status, childlessness and family work were identified as important factors: Frequency of contact substantially varied by gender and family context. Of all surveyed groups, married childless women and married men with children had the least contacts in both languages. Although an unequal distribution of childcare may limit women's time resources, we observed a positive association between motherhood and frequency of contact in German.     

Parenthood,Gender and Work‐Family Time in the United States,Australia, Italy,France, and Denmark

Research has associated parenthood with greater daily time commitments for fathers and mothers than for childless men and women, and with deeper gendered division of labor in households. How do these outcomes vary across countries with different average employment hours, family and social policies, and cultural attitudes to family care provision? Using nationally representative time‐use data from the United States, Australia, Italy, France, and Denmark (N = 5,337), we compare the paid and unpaid work of childless partnered adults and parents of young children in each country. Couples were matched (except for the United States). We found parents have higher, less gender‐equal workloads than nonparents in all five countries, but overall time commitments and the difference by parenthood status were most pronounced in the United States and Australia.     

Missing Out on the Parenthood Bonus? Voluntarily Childless in a “Child-friendly” Society

This article draws on interviews with Swedish voluntarily childless women and men in order to discuss their understandings of living in a so-called “child-friendly” welfare society where social policies subsidize families with children. Previous research from Anglo-Saxon countries implies that the social, political and economical interests of the voluntarily childless are in conflict with the interests of parents and that state subsidies and policies in support of parents could be considered as discrimination of childless people. However, in contrast to this previous research, the interviewees did not object to the redistributive tax system that benefits parents or to the political ambition to build a “child-friendly” labour market where it is possible to reconcile work with parenthood. Instead they defended themselves against accusations for being “free-riders” who did not contribute to society by referring to the responsibility they took by paying high taxes. Notwithstanding, the informants criticized how some parents misused their benefits and cashed in on them, making the voluntarily childless feel exploited. The article also suggests that state subsidies can eliminate some motives for voluntary childlessness but not all of them. The results add nuances to previous research as they highlight the importance of further investigating the relations between parents and non-parents in a social and political context.     

Race and Childlessness in America, 1988–2002

This paper bridges the literature on childlessness, which often focuses on married White couples, to the literature on race and fertility, which often focuses on why total fertility rates and nonmarital births are higher for Blacks than Whites. Despite similarity in levels of childlessness among Black women and White women, Black trends have been largely ignored. Recent research has not adequately explored the extent to which factors driving childlessness may vary among Black and White women. We attempted to fill this gap using the National Survey of Family Growth (N = 3,628) and found many similarities in the predictors of childlessness for both races. Exceptions were the role of marital status and educational attainment.     

Fertility expectations and ethnic identity among Mexican-American adolescents: an expression of cultural ideals

1980 survey data from 2 secondary schools in Arizona are studied to explain the differences in expected fertility of Mexican American and Anglo adolescents. Mexican Americans have maintained higher fertility rates than the national average, and this study helps clarify how cultural heritage and socioeconomic status relate to family formation patterns. The model, which is based on expected fertility rates of adolescents which parallel those of adults, predicts higher fertility rates for minority group members at every level of socioeconomic status. Male adolescent Anglos expect an average of 2.27 children, whereas female adolescent Anglos expect only 2.11. In both instances for Mexican Americans, the expected number is higher: 2.78 for males, 2.68 for females. Mexican American adolescents who speak Spanish at home are more likely to expect 3, 4, 5, or more children, whereas those who speak English at home are more likely to remain childless or to expect less than 2 children. Similarly, the adolescent with a Mexican born father is more likely to expect more children than the adolescent with a native born father. Tucson residents are less likely to expect 2 or more children, while Nogales (80% Mexican origin) residents are more likely to expect 3, 4, or 5 children. The acculturation factors that help to explain the high birth rate expectations of Mexican Americans are: 1) language, 2) generation, and 3) neighborhood. At every level of expected educational attainment and occupational level, Mexican Americans expect more children than Anglos. Socioeconomic status of the family of origin is the crucial variable linking fertility to socioeconomic status. The actual fertility of minority groups should not be mistaken for the expected fertility of minority groups; both are subject to different influences. However, differences in fertility expectations of Mexican American adolescents and their Anglo counterparts parallel the differences in the actual fertility rates of these groups.