Childlessness

In rekto:verso (1 september 2020) klaagt Anne Van den Dool de schaamtecultuur aan rond bewuste kinderloosheid en twijfels of spijt over moederschap. Ze verwijst naar het recente werk van drie auteurs: Sheila Heti, die in Moederschap haar eigen kinderloosheid probeert te verantwoorden; Rachel Cusk, die de shock van het moederschap beschrijft in A Life’s Work; en Saskia De Coster, die moederschap en schrijverschap moeilijk kan verzoenen in Nachtouders. De werken konden op negatieve reacties rekenen, en het artikel noemt die schaamtecultuur dan ook een taboe, maar is dat wel zo? Er zijn heel wat recente series (Kinderwens, Motherland…) en opiniestukken (Linde Merckpoel in De Standaard, 10 augustus 2020) met dezelfde boodschap. Het thema verhit de gemoederen, maar wordt wel besproken. Waar veel minder over wordt gepraat – en wat misschien een groter taboe is – is dat moederschap waardevol is.

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.

Just over 20% of white women in America will never bear children, the highest percentage in modern history.  Only half of this group-10% of women without children- are considered infertile.  Many women in the fertile but childless group are voluntarily so:  the self-proclaimed childfree.

Yet despite the growing acceptability in remaining a childfree adult, doctors are resistant to sterilizing women without children. Access to sterilization is usually repeatedly denied, often with tactics of humiliation, hoop jumping, or second-guessing the legitimacy of the patient’s desire for sterilization, despite the legal status of voluntary sterilization for any competent person over the age of 21- regardless of parity.     

This paper will examine the many reasons why a woman who does not have children would want to continue in her childfree lifestyle, evaluate the accessibility of sterilization for women who are childfree by examining the reported reasons for denial of sterilization- both from the woman’s and the physicians’ perspective, and assess the legal status of voluntary sterilization for nonparous women. The paper will conclude that sterilization for childfree women is an ethical, legal option and that willing doctors should follow recommended guidelines for counseling women who desire sterilization, and urge hesitant doctors to reconsider their oppositions to voluntary sterilization for childfree women and provide the contraception of preference to women.

Pandangan tentang childfree beberapa hari belakangan ini menjadi sorotan kaum milenial. Apakah childfree ini akan menjadi sebuah trend dikalangan anak muda indonesia saat ini? bagaimana islam memandang hal ini? dan bukankah Alloh SWT memberikan kabar gembira kepada nabi Ibrahim AS berupa anak bernama Ismail AS

Forming a family and having children constitutes an adulthood rite of passage, one of the tacitly assumed requirements of a fulfilled life. What happens, then, when the "family dream" does not materialize? This article addresses the dark sides of the "family imperative" by focusing on representations of involuntary childlessness (i.e. childlessness not by choice) in film. It advances the argument that popular culture, far from being "mere entertainment" has an important role in wider processes of stigmatization, silencing and, as a result, exclusion of those who do not have a family. The analysis, which is informed by a broader study into the structure of silence surrounding childlessness, presents the findings of a comparative qualitative content analysis that examined the (troubling) representations of involuntary childless individuals in 50 films from Italy, Norway, the US. It discusses their far reaching cultural and political implications, making practical suggestions to counter their stigmatizing effects.

The chapter uses postcolonial theory to explore the intersection of aging with biblical texts, to construct a liberation theology that is sensitive to challenges that confront senior citizens.  Since the research on aging  is concerned with the needs and rights of older persons, against abuse , discrimination, marginalization,  amongst others, it certainly finds its place within  the paradigm of liberation theologies and hermeneutics.  Studying the Bible from a liberation perspective would have to take on the stories of older persons as normative in constructing a theology of the aging . A theology of older persons cannot just be constructed for them, it needs to be constructed by them and with them.  As the path of liberation theologies has already been marked, hermeneutics of older persons will have to be studied  through intersectionality, in relation to other significant social categories such as gender, class, race, ethnicity and sexuality.

The paper advances the argument that creativity makes unique theoretical and methodological contributions to Political Communication. The analysis draws on the author's experience of using creative approaches, beside more "traditional" methods, to develop a new theoretical framework about the causes and political consequences of silence in the 21 st century. The model explains the mechanisms through which suffering and pain felt inside the body-through intermediate steps that involve, among others, the role of the media in the narrative construction of the body and the self-translate into silence, exclusion from public debate, and lack of political representation. It is based on empirical evidence provided by the case study of involuntary childlessness (i.e. childlessness not by choice). The discussion starts from outlining the shortcomings of a field of study that is heavily shaped-and limited-by a history of quantitative approaches and a (arbitrarily defined) standard of what is a "legitimate" topic of investigation. It then demonstrates the utility of creative approaches: first by briefly presenting the theoretical result they contributed to: a more comprehensive theory of silence than existing theories currently offer; second, by illustrating four key roles for creativity in the research process: a tool of investigation, engagement, reflexivity, social and political change. Excerpts of evocative writing, poetry, and links to the video of a performance lecture based on the study are integrated in the academic text, both as practical illustrations and as experiential "tasters" for the reader of the points presented.

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.

This paper develops a theoretical framework that explains the mechanisms through which suffering and pain felt inside the body translate into silence, exclusion from public debate, and lack of political representation. This happens through intermediate steps that involve, among others, the role of the media in the narrative construction of the body and the self. This framework both combines and extends current explanations of silence that span sociolinguistic approaches, theories of stigma, the "spiral of silence," and the "sphere of deviance." It is developed on empirical evidence provided by the case study of involuntary childlessness (i.e. childlessness not by choice): even in the age of ubiquitous communication, despite affecting about 25% of the adult population of practically all developed countries, this issue is shrouded in taboo and seldom heard of. This leads to policy gaps, for instance, in dealing with the long-term trauma of infertility and lack of support for isolated childless individuals in their old age. The study combines in-depth interviews, content analysis of popular culture and a five-year ethnography. Its findings show the limitations of current theories, making the case for a more material, indeed embodied, approach to political communication.

Drawing on normative cultural forms and interpersonal encounters, the author seeks to convey the sense of sadness and devastation associated with childlessness in the Upper Zambezi, an area in Africa shared by the countries of Zambia and Angola. The author interprets those emotions as a pathology of severed intersubjectivity. As  irremediable as this pathology might seem, however, elderly childless women may momentarily revert to personhood through empathy and compassion, emotions that signal the momentary renewal of intersubjective ties. The conditions of personhood and nonpersonhood, in addition to being structural and processual, are emotional, performative, and intersubjective as well.

BACKGROUND
The Great Recession had a strong effect not only on the economy of developed
countries but also on family dynamics. Many studies investigate how the crisis affected
fertility behavior, but the link between economic shocks and childbearing is still
debated.
OBJECTIVE
Most studies argue that fertility responds to recessions with only a temporary
postponement of first births by young women. A paper by Comolli and Bernardi
(2015), though, finds a permanent positive effect of the Great Recession in the United
States on childlessness among women in their late thirties. In light of these results, we
test whether a similar effect is found in a different context, i.e., Italy.
METHODS
We apply the difference-in-difference method to synthetic cohorts of Italian childless
women in their late thirties to assess whether the crisis had a permanent impact on the
cohorts’ childlessness rates. We use the Istat 2004–2013 Italian Labor Force Survey
(LFS).
RESULTS
During the Great Recession in Italy, contrary to the United States, childlessness among
women around the age of 40 registered short-term negative fluctuations. Only mideducated
women seem to have slightly postponed first births during the crisis.
CONTRIBUTION
This paper contributes to the debate on how economic shocks affect fertility, with the
objective of assessing whether the recent Great Recession had a permanent effect on childlessness in Italy. The main conclusion is that, except for the group of women with
average education, the crisis did not increase permanent childlessness among Italian
women beyond its preexisting positive long-term trend.

Remaining childless is a process which is influenced by the continuously changing context in which an individual woman lives, and by the many choices she makes in various life spheres over her life course. Most previous studies on this issue have compared mothers and childless women at the end of their reproductive years, and have sought to identify the primary reasons for childlessness by regressing measures of accumulated experience of life events on the probability of having no children. Such an approach does not allow us to capture the wide variety of paths to childlessness. Using sequence analysis we reconstruct the major life course trajectories of childless women and reveal the complexity of the life paths that lead to childlessness in the urban populations of Italy and Poland. We conclude that more reflection is needed when designing studies on childlessness, and that we will be unable to understand the complexities of the process of remaining childless unless better data and methods are implemented in these studies.

Involuntarily childless women seeking medical attention in Bulawayo's public hospitals sometimes experience loss reminders that lead to a depleted sense of worth and feelings of social rejection. The purpose of this study was to understand their psychological, sociocultural and spiritual experiences so as to develop an evidence-based wholistic approach of addressing their needs. Ten married childless women were interviewed using semi-structured in-depth interviews. The researcher adopted a qualitative paradigm. He utilized Giorgi's phenomenological approach in analysing the data. Women in this study experienced many negative emotions that made them feel worthless. They could not fit in the company of those that had children. They also felt cursed by God or bewitched by their enemies. The study concluded that carefulness in treating involuntarily childless patients was essential. This included the selection of words when addressing them. A special ward for them was necessary in order to prevent the resurfacing of loss reminders. Adequate counselling before they left the hospital was viewed as imperative. Education and awareness were seen as invaluable in lowering the stigma attached to this challenge. The provision of chaplaincy services was comprehended as indispensable if these women were to receive wholistic patient care.

The agony of being a childless man: Women have talked for years about the longing for a baby. Now would-be dads are sharing their pain
Estimates suggest 25 per cent of men over 43 are childless:
Dr Robin Hadley became childless not-by-choice as his wife was unable to have kids
Sheridan Voysey was diagnosed as infertile after seeking help to have children
They believe men need more support than they are currently getting
By Stefanie Marsh For The Daily Mail
PUBLISHED: 22:34, 29 October 2017 | UPDATED: 08:31, 30 October 2017
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5029609/The-agony-childless-man.html#ixzz4yDXul0co

This study combines census, survey, and vital statistics data to reconstruct childlessness trends among women born between 1900 and 1972 in 30 European countries. After discussing the available sources, their strengths and weaknesses, and the selection of data used in this article, I present childlessness trends in individual countries and broader European regions, and analyse between-country variability. Europe has experienced a U-shaped pattern in permanent childlessness among women born between 1900 and 1972, with the lowest levels typically reached among the 1940s cohorts. A clear contrast exists between the generally low levels of childlessness in the former state-socialist countries of Europe and the higher levels of childlessness in other regions. However, as childlessness in central and eastern Europe has increased among women born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this long-standing divide is now eroding. The trend towards increasing childlessness is levelling off in much of western Europe (e.g., in Switzerland and England and Wales). In conclusion, I suggest that women in southern Europe, especially in Italy and Spain, are on track to have the highest levels of childlessness in Europe. I also argue that childlessness trends might become more unstable and more difficult to predict as many women have put off parenthood until late reproductive ages, when they have relatively little time left to have a child.

The demographics of child supply have long concentrated on the implications of reproductive excess, rather than a lack of children. In recent years attention to population ageing has begun to redress this emphasis, but even in ageing research the comparative study of childlessness has a low profile. Data collected as part of anthropological and demographic research on ageing in Indonesia are used to question current assumptions and to introduce issues and concepts that open up current levels and experiences of childlessness to scrutiny. In our East Javanese study community one quarter of the elderly have no children, and nearly 40 per cent have either no or one child. Provincial and national data indicate that these findings are part of a wider pattern, corroborated by historical evidence from Indonesia, Europe, and populations elsewhere in the world. Analysis of the East Javanese data shows that childlessness is a composite category. Demographic childlessness occurs where a combination of proximate determinants (nuptiality, mortality, primary and pathological sterility) leads to nil childbearing and child survival. De facto childlessness arises where there is a lack of support from any children. Actual childlessness aggregates demographic and de facto childlessness, net of adoption or remarriage where these provide alternative access to children. Analysis also takes into account the practices of patronage, charity and kin support to assess the implications of childlessness in old age where state-support is lacking.

The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that childhood attachment predicts whether a person has children in later life. Although being a parent is considered a typical part of the human life cycle in most parts of the world, childlessness has increased substantially in recent decades in developed parts of the world. It is possible that insecure childhood attachment has contributed to this phenomenon, but this hypothesis has been relatively little explored. This study is a cross-sectional survey of 394 men and women aged over 50 years old, stratified by geographical UK region from a research panel, and analysed using hierarchical logistic regression. Validated measures of childhood attachment and other psychological and demographic factors were used. The main finding was that, independent of the impact of other variables (age, sex, education level, marital status, life stress, healthrelated quality of life, mental positivity, and avoidant attachment style), people who ...

Abstract
During the interwar period, fertility dropped to very low levels in many western European countries, almost always below the replacement level but not much is known about this phenomenon. To bring new features, this paper focuses on family size in France and in Belgium for cohorts of women born between 1872 and 1931 (distinguishing women according to their marital status), revealing the important role of childlessness and small families in the strong decline in fertility. A particular focus is then placed on the timing of family formation revealing that the very low levels of fertility of the interwar period can be explained, at least in part, by a modification of the timing of fertility.

Résumé
Au cours de l’entre-deux-guerres, la fécondité a chuté à des niveaux très faibles dans de nombreux pays d’Europe occidentale, presque toujours en dessous du niveau de remplacement. Ce phénomène reste pourtant assez peu étudié et c’est pour apporter de nouveaux éléments à sa compréhension que cet article se penche sur la taille de la famille en France et en Belgique pour les générations de femmes nées entre 1872 et 1931 (en distinguant les femmes en fonction de leur état civil), révélant le rôle important de l’infécondité et des petites familles dans les très faibles niveaux de fécondité observés. Un accent particulier est également mis sur le calendrier de la formation de la famille révélant que les très faibles niveaux de fécondité de l’entre-deux-guerres peuvent être expliqués, au moins en partie, par une modification du calendrier de la fécondité.

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...

Forming a family and having children constitutes an adulthood rite of passage, one of the tacitly assumed requirements of a fulfilled life. What happens, then, when the "family dream" does not materialize? This paper addresses the dark sides of the "family imperative" by focusing on representations of involuntary childlessness (i.e. childlessness not by choice) in film. It advances the argument that popular culture, far from being "mere entertainment" has an important role in wider processes of stigmatization, silencing and, as a result, exclusion of those who do not have a family. The analysis, which is informed by a broader study into the structure of silence surrounding childlessness, presents the findings of a comparative qualitative content analysis that examined the (troubling) representations of involuntary childless individuals in 50 films from Italy, Norway, the US. It discusses their far reaching cultural and political implications, making practical suggestions to counter their stigmatizing effects.

Replacement level fertility in developed countries is the level at which women in fertile age have 2.1 births. One of the most serious problems that countries in Europe and East Asia encounter today is fertility rates that remain lower than the desired replacement level, which leads to various new manifestations of the common bad (demographic winter), such as population aging and demographic decline. As the percentage of childless women and of women who have only one child is very high in these countries, the demographic problem can be solved only if the number of women who undertake high-order births rises significantly. Most European countries have family policies in place that encourage two-breadwinner families to have 2-3 children, but calculations show that these incentives are not only practically, but also mathematically unable to accomplish the targeted 2.1 average fertility rate, therefore the best way to achieve replacement level fertility is to support couples to have very many (a minimum of 5) children. One possible form to really efficiently promote high-order births is with the help of a new institution: full-time parenthood as a form of public employment.

The implications of the global trend of declining fertility rates and an increasingly ageing population have been extensively reported. Childless men are, compared to women, missing from gerontological, psychological, reproduction, and sociological research. These fields have mainly focussed on family formation and practices with the fertility intentions, history, and experience of older men being overlooked. Over the past 15 years, research literature on both involuntary childlessness and ageing has highlighted the paucity of material on men’s experience. Infertility research has shown that failure to fulfil the status of parenthood may lead to a complex form of bereavement and is a significant challenge to identity. In the past three decades, there has been an escalation in the research and general literature surrounding fathers, fathering and fatherhood. Recent research into contemporary grandparenting has highlighted the intricacy and importance of intergenerational relationships to grandfathers. Drawing on my auto/biographical PhD study, this piece examines how 14 self-defined involuntarily childless men managed non-fatherhood. The findings demonstrated the complex intersections between the men’s attitude to childlessness, fatherhood, and non-fatherhood across the life course. The actions and attitudes of the men as they negotiated the movement from pre-transitional to a post-transitional stance towards fatherhood, demonstrated the different strategies each adapted in order to negotiate their procreative remit. This study countered the stereotype that fatherhood is not important to men and challenges research that reports that men are not affected by the social, emotional, and relational aspects of involuntary childlessness.

The present study aimed at investigating and comparing the differences in the levels of depression inflicted by childbearing and childless couples. A sample of 400 couples; 200 childless and 200 childbearing couples ranging in age from 20-69 years was taken from different cities of Pakistan. To measure the depression, Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock & Erbaugh, 1961) was used. The results indicated that childless couples tend to demonstrate higher levels of depression as compared to that of childbearing couples. Findings of the gender differences suggested that infertile females tend to have higher levels of depression as compared to infertile males. The data provided evidence that education, age, income, family system and rural/urban area do not play any important role in deterioration of sadness of infertile couples. The findings further showed the positive role played by language for depression that implies the sample of Urdu language is more likely to be de...

Infertility remains a neglected issue in Bangladesh’s reproductive health policy; instead, the emphasis has always been on the problem of overpopulation. As a result the dominant state ideology in Bangladesh is related to controlling fertility, and the implementation of Family Planning programmes has become a success story for the country (Ahmed and Chowdhury, 1999; Country Report, 2006). Although no epidemiological study has been conducted in the national level to know the prevalence rate of infertility in Bangladesh, a global review of infertility from the World Fertility Survey and others estimated infertility rates in South Asian countries stated 4% in Bangladesh. Another estimate of overall primary and secondary infertility in South Asia, on the basis of women at the end of their reproductive lives in the age group 45-49 years, suggests an infertility rate of approximately 15% in Bangladesh (Vaessen, 1984; Farely, 1988, cited in Kumar, 2007), which is the highest among all South Asian countries.  There is evidence that potential causal factors of infertility are also widely present in Bangladesh. Studies showed that in the South Asian region reproductive health problems such as sexually transmitted diseases (STD), urinary tract infections (UTI), reproductive tract infections (RTI), unhygienic delivery, postpartum infection and unsafe obstetric and abortion procedures are linked to sepsis and pelvic infections, which can cause infertility (Unisa, 2010; Ali et al., 2007; Prasad 2005; WHSEA, 2002a; Jejeebhoy, 1998). A report by WHSEA (2002b) suggested that the prevalence of STDs in Bangladesh is still unknown, but following their analysis of small scale studies conducted between 1989 and 1997, Bangladesh has a high prevalence of STDs. Other investigation reported that the estimated number of people with STDs in the country is around 2.3 million (SDNP-2002). A recent study of truck drivers in Bangladesh found a high prevalence of the herpes simplex virus (HSV-2), at 25.8% (Gibney et al., 2002). WHSEA’s (2002b) report also suggested that in Bangladesh the prevalence of RTIs amongst women is 56% in rural and 60% in urban settings.  It is noted in addition, that because of the under-reporting of secondary infertility in health facility based studies, the information that is available on causes of infertility is likely to consistently underestimate the role of infections, which are the most frequent cause of secondary infertility, 55% as reported by WHSEA (2002a). Compounding the problem is the increasing number of abortions and unhygienic birth practices in Bangladesh, which can also result in a higher likelihood of pelvic infections. It has been observed that only 5% of births in Bangladesh are attended by a health professional (WHSEA, 2002b) and abortion practice have increased in recent times in the country (Rahman, 2000). A cross-sectional study revealed that 66% of the women surveyed reported that they had experienced at least one complication during their last pregnancy and/or childbirth (Ahmed et al., 1998).  Furthermore, the other indirect causal factors of infertility are also worth mentioning here, such as poverty, tuberculosis, malnutrition, anaemia, and low-birth-weight. For example it is already acknowledged that poverty increases the risk of infertility in many ways, for example, the scarcity of water and the lack of access to nutrition and health care make women more vulnerable to RTI, which may cause secondary infertility among them (Unnithan-Kumar, 2001). This is the case in Bangladesh, where 36% of people live below the poverty level. Also a number of studies done in India found that tuberculosis is another indirect causal factor of female infertility (Haque, 2002; Kumar, 2008). Haque (2002) reported globally Bangladesh ranks as the fourth highest country in terms of the prevalence of TB, and contains 3.6% of the TB cases diagnosed worldwide. There is also evidence of the effect of maternal nutritional status, e.g. weight and mid-arm circumference, and anaemia on the incidence of sterility (Jejeebhoy, 1998; Singh, 2007). According to a Human Development report, 59% of young girls suffer from chronic malnutrition in Bangladesh (WHSEA, 2002b). This is further confirmed through the Government of Bangladesh Country Report (2000), which stated that approximately 70% of pregnant mothers in Bangladesh suffer from malnutrition and high rates of anaemia (Country Report, 2000). Another factor contributing to infertility is low-birth-weight, with 50% of all infants in Bangladesh being born underweight (Fuchs, 1992).  In addition to these practical issues, infertility has a deep cultural dimension. Whilst Bangladesh is an anti-natalist state, the society is pro-natalist. For various economic, cultural and religious reasons children are necessary and extremely valued in this society. Consequently, being childless has a wide range of consequences for both rural and urban Bangladeshi women, in terms of social stigma, familial violence, and psychological or economic disadvantages, with the essence of all these consequences being ‘suffering’. Studies show that in a patriarchal society like Bangladesh where motherhood is synonym of womanhood, childlessness destroys the identity of womanhood, which results in marginalisation (Nahar and Richters, 2011; Nahar, 2010b, 2010c, 2012).  However, despite the fact that there are significant potential risk factors for infertility in Bangladesh, and that infertility results is a serious disruptions to people’s/women’s wellbeing, there are hardly any services available for infertility in Bangladesh (UNFPA, 1996). In a comparatively recent discussion of maternal health in Bangladesh, Graham (2001), by using the source of ‘Bangladesh Demography and Health Survey’ data, provided a list of reproductive health care services in Bangladesh. There too was no mention of infertility service in the list.  A more recent qualitative exploration, the experiences of infertile women in terms of their health seeking in Bangladesh, found that there are hardly any public or NGO services for infertile people/ women. Along with a wide range of informal private services, there are only a few biomedical services available in the private sector, and these are expensive (Nahar, 2010a). With this as a backdrop, in this paper I will explore the stakeholders’ views on the lack of infertility services in Bangladesh.

Background: Infertility issues have emerged as a major public health problem in the recent decade, especially in most pro-natalist societies around the globe. In 2010, 19.2 million infertile couples worldwide were reported to be without child. Of these childless spouses recorded, a substantial 4.9 million women were estimated to be from India. Women who suffer from involuntary childlessness are more likely to develop anxiety and depressive disorders. Moreover, in the Indian sub-continent implications of childlessness are deep-seated, as many of these women will be socially excluded, abused and discriminated against. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5 & 3) have called for the end of female discrimination and the promotion of sexual as well as reproductive health. In India, healthcare strategies for infertility treatment have been limited, thus making research exploration of the topic worthy and necessary.

Objectives: To describe infertility treatment seeking in India and determine the frequency of treatment seeking among childless women. More importantly, to identify as well as assess potential associations between infertility treatment seeking and selected demographic, economic, reproductive health, marital and social cultural factors amongst childless married Indian women.

Design: National cross-sectional retrospective study using 2007-2008 District Level Household Survey (DLHS-3) secondary data.

Participants and Settings: Representative multi-stage stratified sampling was done using probability proportion to size national sampling technique to survey 643,944 ever-married women aged between 15-49 years from 34 Indian states and union territories.

Methods and Main Outcome Measure: In this research, 11,689 currently married childless women were selected for multivariable binary logistic analysis, assessing association between the selected covariates and a dichotomous dependent variable (healthcare treatment seeking). Self-reported variables utilised in the analysis have been taken from the ‘ever-married’ and ‘household’ DLHS-3 questionnaires.

Results: An age related positive association was observed, as treatment seeking adjusted odds ratios (AORs) increased 5-fold for childless women between the ages of 15 and 39 years (p<0.001). Education level of respondents’ husbands was significantly associated with treatment seeking, with AORs increasing from low-mid level (AOR: 1.29) to tertiary education (AOR: 1.86). Additionally, women from scheduled tribe households had a 47% decrease in likelihood (p<0.001) of seeking treatment as compared to those from none scheduled. A protective effect was observed for wealth, with AORs increasing more than 3-fold from the poorest to the richest wealth index quintile (p<0.001). Lastly, women with vaginal discharge and RTI/STI awareness (AOR: 1.38, p<0.05) had increased treatment-seeking odds, as compared to those without issues.

Conclusions: Sociocultural and economic determinants were intertwined among many of the factors explored, and extended from the individual to marital level. Socioeconomics appears to be a major barrier to infertility treatment seeking among childless women in India, while women who do seek out allopathic treatment often consult the private sector despite the huge costs involved. Healthcare schemes and policies addressing infertility management are thus needed. Further research into medical agents limiting treatment seeking is needed for more effective interventions.

Keywords: Infertility, childlessness, infertility treatment, social economics, reproductive health, India

To better understand the forces underlying fertility decisions, we look at the forerunners of fertility decline. In Rouen, France, completed fertility dropped between 1640 and 1792 from 7.4 to 4.2 children. We review the list of possible explanations and keep only three: increase in materialism, women's empowerment and increase in returning to education. We propose a theory that shows that we can discriminate between these explanations by looking at childlessness and its social gradient. An increase in materialism or, under certain conditions, an increase in women's empowerment, leads to an increase in childlessness, while an increase in returning to education leads to a decrease in childlessness. Looking at the Rouen data, childlessness is clearly on the rise, from 4% in 1640 to 10% at the end of the 18th century, which appears to discredit the explanation based on increasing returns to education, at least for this period.

The paper advances the argument that creativity makes unique theoretical and methodological contributions to Political Communication. The analysis draws on the author's experience of using creative approaches, beside more "traditional" methods, to develop a new theoretical framework about the causes and political consequences of silence in the 21 st century. The model explains the mechanisms through which suffering and pain felt inside the body-through intermediate steps that involve, among others, the role of the media in the narrative construction of the body and the self-translate into silence, exclusion from public debate, and lack of political representation. It is based on empirical evidence provided by the case study of involuntary childlessness (i.e. childlessness not by choice). The discussion starts from outlining the shortcomings of a field of study that is heavily shaped-and limited-by a history of quantitative approaches and a (arbitrarily defined) standard of what is a "legitimate" topic of investigation. It then demonstrates the utility of creative approaches: first by briefly presenting the theoretical result they contributed to: a more comprehensive theory of silence than existing theories currently offer; second, by illustrating four key roles for creativity in the research process: a tool of investigation, engagement, reflexivity, social and political change. Excerpts of evocative writing, poetry, and links to the video of a performance lecture based on the study are integrated in the academic text, both as practical illustrations and as experiential "tasters" for the reader of the points presented.

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain creatively demonstrates in Padmarag (1924) the socially embedded association of women with evil. She brings together a group of women on the premises of Tarini Bhaban in order to explore their psychological terrain, as they share with each other previously untold memories and document their experiences of patriarchal oppression and domestic abuse. Through their reminiscences and memories, Rokeya lays bare the angst of women in a patriarchal social order that silences and suppresses them. Beyond the belief of sisterhood at Tarini Bhaban, in one way or another, most of these women are considered “evil” in society as a whole. For example, Saudamini is a stepmother with no biological children of her own and is regarded as a dakini (witch) and rakshasi (a female demon). Other women of Tarini Bhaban have received comparable tags from society and experienced similar victimization. Based on the representation of “evil” women in the novel, in this article I will discuss their stories and examine some of the contributing factors to their victimization and characterization as wicked in the context of early twentieth-century Bengal.

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.).

Background: Infertility issues have emerged as a major public health problem in the recent decade, especially in most pro-natalist societies around the globe. In 2010, 19.2 million infertile couples worldwide were reported to be without child. Of these childless spouses recorded, a substantial 4.9 million women were estimated to be from India. Women who suffer from involuntary childlessness are more likely to develop anxiety and depressive disorders. Moreover, in the Indian sub-continent implications of childlessness are deep-seated, as many of these women will be socially excluded, abused and discriminated against. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5 & 3) have called for the end of female discrimination and the promotion of sexual as well as reproductive health. In India, healthcare strategies for infertility treatment have been limited, thus making research exploration of the topic worthy and necessary.

Objectives: To describe infertility treatment seeking in India and determine the frequency of treatment seeking among childless women. More importantly, to identify as well as assess potential associations between infertility treatment seeking and selected demographic, economic, reproductive health, marital and social cultural factors amongst childless married Indian women.

Design: National cross-sectional retrospective study using 2007-2008 District Level Household Survey (DLHS-3) secondary data.

Participants and Settings: Representative multi-stage stratified sampling was done using probability proportion to size national sampling technique to survey 643,944 ever-married women aged between 15-49 years from 34 Indian states and union territories.

Methods and Main Outcome Measure: In this research, 11,689 currently married childless women were selected for multivariable binary logistic analysis, assessing association between the selected covariates and a dichotomous dependent variable (healthcare treatment seeking). Self-reported variables utilised in the analysis have been taken from the ‘ever-married’ and ‘household’ DLHS-3 questionnaires.

Results: An age related positive association was observed, as treatment seeking adjusted odds ratios (AORs) increased 5-fold for childless women between the ages of 15 and 39 years (p<0.001). Education level of respondents’ husbands was significantly associated with treatment seeking, with AORs increasing from low-mid level (AOR: 1.29) to tertiary education (AOR: 1.86). Additionally, women from scheduled tribe households had a 47% decrease in likelihood (p<0.001) of seeking treatment as compared to those from none scheduled. A protective effect was observed for wealth, with AORs increasing more than 3-fold from the poorest to the richest wealth index quintile (p<0.001). Lastly, women with vaginal discharge and RTI/STI awareness (AOR: 1.38, p<0.05) had increased treatment-seeking odds, as compared to those without issues.

Conclusions: Sociocultural and economic determinants were intertwined among many of the factors explored, and extended from the individual to marital level. Socioeconomics appears to be a major barrier to infertility treatment seeking among childless women in India, while women who do seek out allopathic treatment often consult the private sector despite the huge costs involved. Healthcare schemes and policies addressing infertility management are thus needed. Further research into medical agents limiting treatment seeking is needed for more effective interventions.

Keywords: Infertility, childlessness, infertility treatment, social economics, reproductive health, India

This book examines the intersectionality and stratified lived experience of rural poor and urban middle-class childless women in Bangladesh.

Childless women in Bangladesh, an over-populated country where fertility control is the primary focus of health policy, are all but non-existent. Papreen Nahar offers an alarming account of stigma, abuse, ostracism and violence against these women, sharing their experiences of marginalisation in a culture that idealises motherhood. In such a reality, the experience of childlessness, particularly for women, can be much more severe than what is defined as ‘infertility’ in the biomedical sense. As childlessness is a complex interaction between biology, society and culture, the book illustrates the ways in which infertility transforms a health problem into social suffering. Although Bangladeshi childless women are systematically excluded by various structural forces, it appears they do not succumb to their circumstances; rather, they develop resilience and agency to become survivors of their new, albeit bleak, lives.

The volume will be of interest to scholars working in anthropology, reproductive and women’s health, global health, gender studies, development studies and Asian studies.

The implications of the global trend of declining fertility rates and an increasingly ageing population have been extensively reported. Childless men are, compared to women, missing from gerontological, psychological, reproduction, and sociological research. These fields have mainly focussed on family formation and practices with the fertility intentions, history, and experience of older men being overlooked. Over the past 15 years, research literature on both involuntary childlessness and ageing has highlighted the paucity of material on men&#39;s experience. Infertility research has shown that failure to fulfil the status of parenthood may lead to a complex form of bereavement and is a significant challenge to identity. In the past three decades, there has been an escalation in the research and general literature surrounding fathers, fathering and fatherhood. Recent research into contemporary grandparenting has highlighted the intricacy and importance of intergenerational relation...

Received: May 18, 2019 Accepted: June 14, 2019 Published: July 31, 2019 Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Involuntarily childless women seeking medical attention in Bulawayo’s public hospitals sometimes experience loss reminders that lead to a depleted sense of worth and feelings of social rejection. The purpose of this study was to understand their psychological, sociocultural and spiritual experiences so as to develop an evidence-based wholistic approach of addressing their needs. Ten married childless women were interviewed using semi-structured in-depth interviews. The researcher adopted a qualitative paradigm. He utilized Giorgi’s phenomenological approach in analysing the data. Women in this study experienced many negative emotions that made them feel worthless. They could not fit in the company of those that had children. They also felt cursed by God or bewitched by their enemies. The study concluded that carefulness in treating involuntarily childless patients was essential. This included ...

The global trend of declining fertility rates and an increasingly ageing population has serious implications for individuals and institutions alike. Childless men are mostly excluded from ageing, social science and reproduction scholarship and almost completely absent from most national statistics. This unique book examines the lived experiences of a hidden and disenfranchised population: men who wanted to be fathers. It explores the complex intersections that influence childlessness over the life course.

Perceptions of Black Heterosexual Men in an Involuntarily Childless Relationship Considering Adopting by Richard P. Campbell MA, Montclair State University, 2011 BS, Washington Adventist University, 2002 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Human and Social Services Walden University August 2018 Abstract Research on involuntary childlessness and adoption among heterosexuals is primarily focused on women’s needs and perceptions. Consequently, little is known about how men view childlessness and adoption, and less is known about Black men’s perceptions. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore Black heterosexual men’s experiences of considering adoption when involved in an involuntarily childlessResearch on involuntary childlessness and adoption among heterosexuals is primarily focused on women’s needs and perceptions. Consequently, little is known about how men view childlessness and adoption, and le...

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.).

Abstract
This thesis includes two volumes: The novel, Swimming, in the first volume, is the fictional narrative of one woman's life and her experience of being childless. Kate, the protagonist of the novel, is not me though she has a number of similar experiences. Kate is the subject of her own narrative, a woman, whose existence presents an alternative figuration of the childless woman. The exegesis, the second volume, is a theoretical exploration and interrogation of the process of my feminist fiction writing as manifest in the writing of Swimming.
Crucial to the development of both texts is the relationship between the real childless woman and the
desire to represent the real childless woman's experience. In this sense real is used to denote the embodied (flesh and blood) individual woman without children. However, this notion of real is not what Stuart Hall refers to as 'a traditional' view of 'the subject' whereby the individual is seen to be 'fully endowed with consciousness; an autonomous and stable entity' (Hall 1997:55). In this thesis, the individual subject is understood to be complex and multiple; woman is understood to be a 'subject-in-process' (Braidotti 2002: 12); and subjectivity an 'ongoing construction, not a fixed point of departure or arrival from which one interacts with the world' (de Lauretis 1984: 159).
Item Type: Thesis (PhD thesis)
Additional Information:
This is the second volume from a research thesis in two volumes submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Uncontrolled Keywords: childless, infertility, narrative, subjectivity, creative writing
Subjects: RFCD Classification > 220000 Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts-General
Faculty/School/Research Centre/Department > School of Communication and the Arts
Depositing User: Bingyan Gu
Date Deposited: 24 May 2009 13:56
Last Modified: 23 May 2013 16:41
URI: http://vuir.vu.edu.au/id/eprint/2057
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