This thesis examines the experiences, beliefs, motivations, and perceived costs and benefits of women who are childless by choice in Southern Alberta. I investigate the naturalized and normalized understandings of femininity, motherhood, and citizenship more broadly, and what this means for voluntarily childless women. Using data collected from 21 semi-structured qualitative interviews, I draw on a Foucauldian feminist framework to explore the narratives of voluntarily childless women, and, through subsequent examination, to explore issues of choice, responsibility, pronatalism, identity, and stigma. I first consider how the women negotiate their childbearing decisions in light of competing pronatalist, capitalist, and cultural demands. I then focus on techniques of identity construction by highlighting the negotiations of voluntarily childless women in relation to the physical, emotional, and social costs and benefits of their reproductive decisions. Finally, I explore the varying sources of pressure and support that impact women’s experience in daily life. / viii, 215 leaves ; 29 cm

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / An increasing number of working age adults are choosing to delay or forego parenthood entirely, but little research has explored how voluntarily childfree adults are perceived and treated in the workplace. While a large body of research has examined the impacts of motherhood on working women, little work has been done to understand the experiences of voluntarily childfree women. This study explored perceptions of working women based on their reproductive choices and whether these perceptions relate to differences in promotion decisions. Based on social backlash theory, I hypothesized that voluntarily childfree (VCF) women would be penalized in promotion decisions, and that perceptions of agentic-dominance and communality would explain this relationship. Using a sample of 220 participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, I tested my proposed mediation model and found no support for my hypotheses. Counter to expectations, no evidence of the motherhood penalty emerged either. Despite the lack of significant findings in this study, future work should consider assessing the relationships proposed with different experimental design.

Previous research suggests that women without children are perceived negatively by others and experience adverse outcomes in various settings. This study investigated psychosocial justifications of prejudice toward childfree women. Participants (N = 891) completed measures of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), the internal (IMS-S) and external (EMS-S) motivations to respond without sexism, and prejudice toward childfree women (i.e., perceived disadvantages of being childfree, evaluations of childfree women, and perceptions of childfree women’s warmth). Most participants also completed one or more justification measures of hostile sexism (HS), benevolent sexism (BS), gender-specific system justification (GSSJ), and femininity ideology. Results indicated that greater RWA was directly associated with greater perceived childfree disadvantages and coldness in childfree women. Additionally, greater IMS-S was directly associated with fewer perceived disadvantages, favorable evaluations, and greater perceived warmth; and greater EMS-S was directly associated with more negative evaluations and perceived coldness. Greater BS and GSSJ were also associated with greater disadvantages. Furthermore, femininity ideology was directly associated with greater disadvantages, unfavorable evaluations, and perceived coldness. In mediational analyses, IMS-S and EMS-S were associated with greater disadvantages, unfavorable evaluations, and perceived coldness indirectly through femininity ideology. EMS-S was also associated with greater disadvantages and unfavorable evaluations indirectly through BS. This study makes a unique contribution to the literature on attitudes toward childfree women by not only replicating that childfree prejudice persists, but also documenting why it potentially exists. Additionally, by identifying several psychosocial constructs that may justify childfree prejudice, this study suggests future research and possible interventions to reduce childfree prejudice.

Cette thèse va porter tout particulièrement sur l’analyse d’un blogue consacré aux femmes qui, délibérément, ont fait le choix de ne pas avoir d’enfant, les « childfree ». Autour d’elles se développe tout un discours car elles vont à l’opposé des normes « socialement acceptables » préconisées par la société occidentale, qui prône un rôle de mère et d’épouse pour la femme dans un modèle familial ancestral pronataliste. Les « childfree » apparaissent dès lors comme des « outsiders » qui doivent en permanence justifier leur choix de vie face à cette norme de la parentalité. Il est intéressant de se pencher sur ce groupe marqué qui veut sortir de l’ombre et être reconnu en tant que tel, et qui s’exprime au travers de ce blogue « Maman, non merci » (http://mamannonmerci.blogspot.ca/) créé en février 2010 par Magenta Baribeau, cinéaste documentariste québécoise engagée, de 38 ans, sans enfant par choix.

No description available.

This qualitative study is about New Zealand couples who, by choice, do not have children. Strong social norms exist for couples to have children, and those who express a desire to do otherwise have been disbelieved, pressured, and stereotyped. Womanhood has continued to be associated with motherhood, and a maternal instinct is expected to drive women to have children. The aim of this research was to add to knowledge and awareness of how childfree people have experienced being stereotyped, pressured and harassed for being childfree. For this research, I conjointly interviewed ten heterosexual, childfree couples residing in the city of Hamilton. Participants self-identified as childfree, and ranged in age from 23 to 56 years old. Five of the couples also participated in a focus group. Participants related the ways in which they perceived that the wider social context played a role in the negative responses they experienced. Participants revealed how they felt less socially valued through: an idealization of parenthood, exclusion from work benefits, and an expectation that women should manage both employment and motherhood. Stereotyping was found to still occur, with participants reporting that they were labelled as selfish, immature, and anti-children. Stereotypes of being destined for loneliness in later life, and of their pets being substitutes for children were common. Some evidence was found in participants' comments that there were elements of truth in stereotypes of the childfree. The negative stereotyping appeared to have little, if any, impact on how participants viewed or felt about themselves. Participants reported feeling harassed by other people's disbelief in their choice, and assumptions, that despite what they said, everybody wanted children. The pressures experienced by participants took various forms, such as persistent questioning, and came from various sources, including siblings and acquaintances. Participants' reports of feeling pressured or harassed seem to reflect minor and fleeting feelings, rather than a continuing concern. How pressuring comments were perceived by the recipient was very context-dependent. Participants tolerated and coped with people's negative responses by various methods, such as confronting, ignoring, and avoiding the topic of children with certain people. I recommend that further research be done, and that work is needed to promote both acceptance of the childfree option, and freedom of women's identification from association with childbearing.

La réalité des personnes volontairement sans enfant intéresse de plus en plus les médias traditionnels. Les recherches en sciences sociales commencent à s’intéresser à la question, mais elles semblent mettre de côté la réalité des hommes dans cette situation. Dans la majorité des cas, c’est le point de vue des femmes volontairement sans enfant qui est exploré dans les recherches, les reportages ou le web, sur les childfree. Cette recherche qualitative propose un angle inédit jusqu’à maintenant en sociologie sur la question des hommes hétérosexuels qui prennent la décision de ne pas devenir pères. L’intention de cette recherche est de comprendre comment, en tant qu’hommes, ils négocient avec normes, toujours présentes, du faire famille.

Previous research suggests that childfree and childless women are perceived more negatively than mothers. This study investigated attitudes based on parental status, race, and descriptive label. Undergraduate students (N = 386) were randomized to consider targets described as childless, childfree, or mothers/parents. Participants completed a personality characteristic rating scale, the competence and warmth scales of the Stereotype Content Model, an evaluation thermometer, a measure of pronatalism, and a Single Category Implicit Association Test. Childless and childfree women of all races were perceived more negatively than mothers, and women in all parental status groups were ambivalently stereotyped. Implicit attitudes favored parents and childfree targets; however, neither positive nor negative attitudes were demonstrated toward childless targets. Implicit and explicit attitudes were related yet distinct constructs for childless and childfree targets, but were unrelated for parents. With these findings, this study makes a unique contribution to the literature on childlessness and childfreedom.

Den tidigare termen frivilligt barnlös har idag ersatts med den nya benämningen barnfri, vilket innebär att man aktivt väljer bort  föräldraskapet. På grund av en fortsatt stigmatisering behöver ämnet lyftas för att påvisa hur genomtänkt ett barnfritt val är. Men finns det skillnader i hur kvinnor resonerar i sin barnfrihet? Är det skillnad mellan kvinnor som är födda i två årtionden i deras motiv ur ett mikro- och makroperspektiv? Genom en kvalitativ studie med semistrukturerade frågor intervjuades åtta svenska kvinnor, tre födda 1970-1979, samt fem födda 1980-1989, för att jämföra deras främsta skäl till att välja ett barnfritt liv. Resultatet visar att den primära orsaken för alla utom en av deltagarnas barnfrihet grundar sig i mikroperspektivet såsom frihet, spontanitet och av hänsyn till sin egna kropp. Bidragande orsaker kunde ses utifrån makroperspektivet som klimat, överpopulation och psykisk ohälsa. Den yngre gruppen uttryckte en större oro inför klimat, överpopulation och framtidsutsikter i jämförelse med den äldre gruppen. Sammanfattningsvis har den här studien visat hur genomtänkt valet är att leva som barnfri / The former term “voluntary childless” has today been replaced with the new term “child-free”, which means actively choose not to parent. Due to continued stigmatization, the topic needs to be explored to show how well thought-out the choice to remain child-free is. Are there differences in how women resonate around their child freedom? Are there any differences between women who were born in two different decades in their motives from a micro- and macro perspective? Through a qualitative study with semi-structured questions, eight Swedish women, three born 1970-1979, and five born 1980-1989, were interviewed to compare their main reasons for choosing a child-free life. The results show that the primary cause of all but one interviewees' childfreeness is based on the micro-perspective such as freedom, spontaneity and for the sake of their own body. Contributing causes could be seen from the macro perspective such as climate, overpopulation and mental ill health. The younger group expressed greater concern about climate, overpopulation and worse prospects compared to the older group. In summary, this study has shown how well thought-out the choice is to live as a child-free.

I’mOther explores the concept of childfreeness, and the notion of being childfree by choice as a cis woman, through multidisciplinary practices and theories that combine methods from art and crafts, metadesign and feminist sociology. The project is situated in a Swedish context through an autoethnographic-inspired orientation that brings in situated knowledge, and in addition aims to invite and acknowledge diverse experiences and insights from creative and influential collaborations, in order to weave together a bigger picture. To uncover the elements that uphold the hegemonic fertility norm, and look into what a deviation from this norm means in an everyday context, the project seeks to move between individual and sociocultural levels through a norm critical and norm-creative design approach. Through a process of unpicking, going from norm, to language, to sentence, to word, the project has engaged in different levels of languaging with the ambition to intervene at a paradigm level and open up for conceptual spaces when thinking and talking about what adulthood can include. In a collaborative probing of spaces, which can invite conversations about childfreeness, craft have acted as a means of social interplay. Engaging with the crafshership of embroidery in combination with the comics medium, the project further elaborates through an artistic interpretation to convey narratives of childfree women. In a celebratory way, the project wants to give agency to women who experience life outside of the norm and speak to those who have the privilege to shape their own lives and to those who want to understand the choice of others.