Suchergebnisse

The common belief that childlessness is positively associated with instability of marriage derives from official statistics which appear to show higher divorce rates for childless than for fertile couples. The official findings are a procedural artifact, however, and the relationship shown is certainly exaggerated and possibly spurious.The appropriate strategy in determining whether divorcees are relatively infertile is to find a population with disrupted marriages and measure its fertility experience. In doing so it is necessary to take note of the definition of fertility, the remarriage factor, and (most importantly) the duration of marriage. The official statistics use the conception of legal duration of marriage. Since this ignores separation before divorce, its use exaggerates the infertility of divorcees, as does failure to exclude remarriages. De facto duration of marriage (wedding to separation) is a superior statement of opportunity to conceive, and calculations on this basis eliminate or even reverse the fertility differential between divorcing and stable couples. Local figures are used to illustrate this effect, and the finding is supported by evidence from a sample of marriages ending in legal proceedings lesser than divorce. It is concluded that the alleged relationship between childlessness and instability of marriage is probably either non-existent or the reverse of that normally assumed, and that in any case measurement of the net overall effect of childlessness does not provide a helpful datum. An alternative strategy of research is suggested, which would seek patterns of effect rather than net overall effect, taking heed of relevant variables, and also considering all forms of marital breakdown including marriages in which cohabitation continues only with disharmony.

AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic has prompted questions about individuals' fertility intentions and decisions during such a large‐scale, drawn‐out crisis. In this paper, I ask how women who have not (yet) had children and who are nearing the end of their timeline for parenthood are making sense of the pandemic. Drawing on novel in‐depth interview data conducted during the pandemic with over 100 women aged 35–50 in the United States who are childless for a variety of reasons, I argue that the pandemic has produced a shared sense of "gendered uncertainty" by exacerbating both preexisting worries about motherhood and unease about the future. As the data further reveal, the pandemic has therefore been conceived of by many childless women as a good time to not have children, particularly in light of the United States' weak infrastructure of family support. These findings contribute to existing theoretical frameworks of fertility change by foregrounding women's subjective evaluations of their reproductive options during a time of upheaval and introducing the important role of gendered uncertainty in shaping reproductive sense‐making. Findings also contribute to the literature on childlessness by demonstrating how childlessness can gain newfound appeal as a family status during turbulent times.

Using data from the second wave of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) for 3069 female and 2096 male respondents, we studied differences in norms of universal and of personal familial responsibility between childless individuals and parents. Differences depend on the type of norm studied. Childless individuals, and in most cases only those who opt voluntarily for a childless life, express weaker norms of universal familial responsibility in comparison with parents. Women's norms of personal familial responsibility do not vary by parental status. Men appear to need the presence of children to activate feelings of personal responsibility for family members. Differences between childless individuals and parents are attributable to selection rather than to adaptation. The theoretical and social implications of our findings are discussed.

SummaryUsing data from the first wave of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) for 2867 women and 2195 men aged 40 to 79, this study examines to what extent educational, employment and marital pathways shape the likelihood of remaining childless, and whether these pathways are gendered. The findings indicate that women and men have distinctive pathways into childlessness. Educational attainment increases the likelihood of remaining childless among women only. A stable career increases the likelihood of remaining childless among women, but it increases the likelihood of entering fatherhood. Years without a partner is positively associated with childlessness among both women and men. Not having had a partnership and having had multiple partnerships are strong determinants of childlessness, especially among men.

"Children are Everywhere engages with how demographic anxieties and reproductive regimes emerge as forms of social inclusion and exclusion in a low fertility Western European context. This book explores everyday experiences of parenting and childlessness of 'ethnic' Germans in Berlin, who came of age around the fall of the Berlin Wall, and brings them into conversation with theories on parenting, waithood, non-biological intimacies, and masculinities. This is the first ethnographic work by a South Asian author on demographic anxieties and reproduction in Germany and reverses the anthropological gaze to study Europe as the 'Other.'"--

Forty-five per cent of first marriages in Ethiopia end in divorce within 30 years, and two-thirds of women who divorce do so within the first 5 years of marriage. This paper looks at two factors that may have an impact on the risk of divorce in Ethiopia: early age of first marriage, and childlessness within the first marriage. Data used were from the 1990 National Family and Fertility Survey conducted by the Government of Ethiopia. A total of 8757 women of reproductive age (15–49) were analysed. Life table analysis was used to determine the median age at first marriage, first birth and the median duration of marriage. Cox models were analysed to determine the differentials of divorce. The results of this analysis showed that both early age at marriage and childlessness have a significant impact on the risk of divorce. An inverse relationship was found between age at marriage and risk of divorce. Having a child within the first marriage also significantly reduced the risk of divorce. In addition, several cultural and socioeconomic variables were significant predictors of divorce.

Platformed sociality has become an elemental part of existential processes and struggles. Previous research has shown that digital contexts offer lifelines of support and a sense of belonging based on shared vulnerabilities. By combining phenomenological and ethnographic approaches, this article explores involuntary childlessness (IC) online in so-called trying-to-conceive (TTC) contexts on Instagram and in blogs. The analysis is driven by the following questions: What are the particularities of digital lifeline communication in the context of IC? Can lifeline communication shape what is coming into being in the context of wished-for children and/or motherhood? Can (digital) life be challenged, extended, or created in this context? Drawing on interviews and online posts from 260 Instagram accounts and three blogs, I argue that digital lifeline communication in TTC environments facilitates digital existence and "digital life" as the notions of motherhood and longed-for and lost children attain a form of digital materiality through posts and discussions.

This book examines discourses around infertility and views of childlessness in medieval and early modern Europe. Whereas in our own time reproductive behaviour is regulated by demographic policy in the interest of upholding the intergenerational contract, premodern rulers strove to secure the succession to their thrones and preserve family heritage. Regardless of status, infertility could have drastic consequences, above all for women, and lead to social discrimination, expulsion, and divorce. Rather than outlining a history of discrimination against or the suffering of infertile couples, this book explores the mechanisms used to justify the unequal treatment of persons without children. Exploring views on childlessness across theology, medicine, law, demonology, and ethics, it undertakes a comprehensive examination of fertility as an identity category from the perspective of new approaches in gender and intersectionality research. Shedding light on how premodern views have shaped understandings our own time, this book is highly relevant interest to students and scholars interested in discourses around infertility across history. Regina Toepfer is Chair of Medieval German Literature at Julius-Maximilians-Universitat Wurzburg, Germany.

[Background:] Childlessness has increased in many European countries. Partnerships and parenthood are obviously closely related, but there is relatively little knowledge on how childlessness is linked to contemporary union dynamics that involve high rates of separation and unmarried cohabitation. [Objective:] To situate (biological) childlessness in longitudinal dynamics of union formation and stability, we take a life-course approach to union trajectories that consist of states entered via the formation and dissolution of cohabitations and marriages. Concretely, we identify groups of similar union trajectories of individuals between the ages of 18 and 39 who are childless at age 42. [Methods: We analyse register data on Finnish men and women born in 1969 and 1970 (childless N=3,241) with sequence, cluster, and multinomial logistic regression methods. [Results:] Four clusters of typical union trajectories were identified among the childless and assigned these labels: 1) Never Partnered (45%), characterized by never having entered a coresidential partnership, or just having entered a cohabitation near age 40; 2) Briefly Cohabited (25%), characterized by mostly living single after a brief cohabitation spell; 3) Cohabitors, Often Serial (19%), marked by typically discontinuous cohabitation; and 4) Married (11%). The Never-Partnered cluster is male-dominated. Men with a rural background and less-educated men and women are overrepresented among the Never-Partnered childless. [Conclusions:] For the great majority of the childless in our study cohorts, union trajectories are marked by either the (almost) complete absence of coresidential unions or fragmentary cohabitation histories. [Contribution:] The study contributes to the literature by showing that union histories, including never partnering as well as cohabitation instability, are key for understanding contemporary childlessness.

AbstractFrom an evolutionary perspective, childlessness may be considered a failure, as it implies that there will be no direct transmission of one's genetic material to later generations. It is also a pressing social issue, because in many contemporary advanced societies, levels of childlessness have increased, and particularly so among men. The absence of a partner is naturally a fundamental determinant of childlessness. Empirical evidence on how childlessness relates to individuals' partnership histories is nevertheless limited. This issue was analysed with Finnish population register data, which allow the complete cohabitation and marriage histories of individuals from age 18 years to be observed. For women and men born between 1969 and 1971, logistic regression models were estimated for childlessness at age 40 by partnership histories in terms of various stages in the process of union formation and dissolution, and accounting for several socioeconomic variables. A strong link between union histories and childlessness was found, with short partnership spells raising the risk of not becoming a parent. Later age when leaving the parental home raised female childlessness, while a short first-union duration related more strongly to male childlessness. These findings may be considered as providing insights into how specific life-history strategies affect reproductive outcomes, and highlight the need to develop new approaches to understand this feature of social inequality.

This article draws on data from a feminist, qualitative social work research project on women's experiences of involuntary childlessness in the context of assisted reproduction. It argues that the dominant construction of "infertility" is partial, biased, and inaccurate and that it serves to maintain infertility as a "woman's problem" to be addressed ideally via biomedicine and individualized approaches to the delivery of services. With reference to the background literature, women's lived experiences of involuntary childlessness are explored. An alternative, multidimensional construction of involuntary childlessness is proposed and implications for social work in reproductive health and directions for further research are presented.

The prevalence and social acceptance of childlessness have increased in recent decades. Still, little is known about how this social acceptance is shaped, the extent to which approval of childlessness differs across Europe, and what factors cause potential cross‐national variation. The authors used data from the European Social Survey 2006 (N =36,187) to examine the attitude toward voluntary childlessness in 20 countries. Results from multilevel models were largely in line with expectations derived from Second Demographic Transition theory concerning traditional orientation, age, religiousness, education, and stage of Second Demographic Transition in a country. The results also corroborated individual‐level expectations on the role of gender and socioeconomic status based on New Home Economics theory. One country‐level indicator, child‐care availability, was not related to the attitude toward childlessness. The current study provides new insights into explaining cross‐national differences in the attitude toward childlessness and more generally into the process of fertility decision making.

The conceptualizations and relations of people with no direct descendants are a field scarcely studied from Social Anthropology and has often been engulfed by the wide networks of family relationships. In this article, the concept "childless children" is proposed as an expression of the link between childlessness and kinship, that is, of the role of childless people in their family network. A cross-cultural perspective allows us to shape the social area of intersection between childlessness and kinship based on topic connections with: procreation as a duty, cultural palliatives to lack of reproduction, celibacy, circulation of children and intergenerational relationships.