Childlessness, whether voluntary, involuntary or circumstantial, is becoming more common in our society. Statistically, greater numbers of Australian women and their Western counterparts will not bear children, thereby creating a larger quantum of couple families. The unwelcome socio-economic consequences have prompted research into reproductive intentions and behaviour to address barriers to reproduction. Studying those who are childless by ‘choice’ or ‘infertile’ provides important ‘reference points’ but also creates a myopic view of the childless that often overlooks circumstantial factors or ignores the fluctuating nature of fertility intentions. Moreover, the medical discourse on infertility has conditioned our thinking and focused research on the psycho-social effects and impacts of assisted reproduction treatment and its failure. This has blurred and obscured the distinction between infertility and involuntary childlessness. Too often these are viewed through the same prism of grief and bereavement as a temporary but pervasive ‘crisis’ and as impediments to adult development in the long term. The thesis provides new insights that challenge our conventional ways of thinking particularly its findings that although infertility and childlessness are related, they are separate phenomena. This has wide-ranging implications, especially for reformulating related clinical practice and counselling. There are several important considerations. One is the finding that the grief and bereavement model has its limitations beyond the infertility stage. Another is the theoretical reconstruction that the thesis provides of the grief that the involuntary childless experience. Finally, it makes a strong case for a more appropriate alternative which the thesis argues should be based on a growth-oriented model. The time point at which the information for this study was collected has rarely ever been used before. This adds significant weight to the findings and applications that potentially derive from them. The thesis also examines gender issues including the complexities in differential experiences, amongst and across gender categories. It builds on the existing body of knowledge on the gendered experience of involuntary childlessness and offers additional explanations for the variations found, around which clinical interventions should be framed. Overall, this study makes an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding by documenting the transitional process to involuntary childlessness in broader terms than has hitherto been the case. Contrary to conventional thinking related to adult development, the findings underscore the importance of viewing involuntary childlessness as an alternative developmental pathway.

This diploma thesis deals with the topic of voluntary childlessness, which, among other things, with regard to the low birth rate, resonates by our society. Its aim is to describe the concept of voluntary childlessness from a sociological point of view, to summarize existing sociological researches on this topic, and primarily to analyze the opinions and motives of women who have opted for voluntary childlessness. For the practical part is used qualitative method of Grounded Theory. The research itself takes the form of in-depth semi-structured interviews, which, thanks to the possibility of responding to specific communication partners, offer the opportunity to look into the lives and values of voluntarily childless women. The conclusion summarizes and interprets knowledge about the opinions and motives of voluntarily childless and offers the professional public a better understanding of this issue.

This thesis is a study in attitudes towards voluntary childlessness. The specific aim is to investigate attitudes towards voluntary childlessness in a society with pronatalist values: how are they structured and how can the structure be interpreted in the Swedish context? As inspiration and theoretical framework the theory of “the value of children”, that was developed by Lois W. Hoffman and Martin L. Hoffman in the 1970’s USA, was used. In order to fulfill the aim a quantitative survey was conducted on the Internet with 2,283 respondents. The data were factor-analyzed and three main factors were interpreted. These factors were named “The natural parenthood”, “Freedom” and “The personal experience”. They were interpreted as three collective dimensions of thinking about parenthood and voluntary childlessness. The study contributes to our knowledge of pronatalist norms as well as the ways in which attitudes towards voluntary childlessness are shaped. The thesis proposes that pronatalist norms can hide under a supposedly individualistic discourse or under internalized beliefs about naturalness. Positive attitudes towards voluntary childlessness seems to contain, above all, beliefs about freedom.

In Australia, as in other industrialised countries, rates of childlessness amongst women are rising. This has been attributed, in part, to a rise in the number of women choosing never to give birth; however, women’s perception of what constitutes choice in remaining childless is under-investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate Australian women’s experience of childlessness at mid age and explore the role of choice in this reproductive outcome. It investigated the determinants of childlessness, considered the consequences of never giving birth, and explored how choice affects childless women’s evaluation of non-motherhood. / A cross-sectional study of the experience of never giving birth was conducted, which comprised two components. The minor component was a secondary analysis of survey data (collected in 1996) from the Women’s Health Australia (WHA) project. WHA is a longitudinal study which recruited a nationally representative sample of 14,099 women born between 1945 and 1952. These women are amongst the first to have lived all their reproductive lives since the introduction of the oral contraceptive. This study compared demographic characteristics, self-rated health, and life satisfaction between 1,069 mid-aged childless women (exclusive of known adoptive and step-mothers) and 12,643 of their peers who are mothers. It was found that at mid-age, childless women have higher levels of education and are more extensively engaged in the paid workforce than mothers, however, there were no differences in health status between mothers and childless women. Life satisfaction differences between the two groups are complex and mediated by marital status. / The major component of the investigation was a study-specific survey (October 2002) completed by 426 nulliparous women who were all participants in the mid-aged cohort of Women’s Health Australia. This component investigated the determinants of childlessness, the role of choice, and the experience of non-motherhood. / In contrast to existing studies into childlessness, this large quantitative investigation has a sample which comprises a broad selection of nulliparous women irrespective of their marital status, medical history, or level of choice in never giving birth. Using an original classification system, women were categorised into three childless groups which describe three levels of choice in never giving birth: 37.1% of respondents chose childlessness actively (Active Choice), 15.4% chose childlessness given their personal circumstances (Constrained Choice), and 47.5% felt denied the opportunity to give birth (Denied Choice). The predominant reason for childlessness amongst the Active Choice women was not experiencing a strong ‘maternal instinct’, the Denied Choice group mainly cited infertility or the lack of a husband/partner, whilst the Constrained Choice group gave a mixture of voluntary and involuntary explanations. / This study developed a balance sheet approach to assessing both the positive and negative aspects of non-motherhood – the Consequence of Childlessness Balance Sheet (CCBS). It also introduced a technique for measuring ambivalence that was developed within social psychology. In contrast to the public discourse that depicts childlessness as a negative life outcome, participants in this study gave a favourable evaluation of their lives. Even so, more than half (55.6%) of the participants experienced moderate levels of ambivalence. Comparisons between the three childless groups revealed that as choice increased participants were more likely to give a higher rating to the positive aspects of their lives, a lower rating to the negative ones, and experience lower levels of ambivalence. However, Denied Choice women generally did not find childlessness a devastating experience. / Therefore, amongst the mid-aged participants in this study the experience of childlessness was complex and diverse, varying with the level of choice women had in never giving birth. Childlessness was not, however, a burdensome or detrimental life outcome for these women.