Research suggests Australian childless women are at risk of pronatalism-driven social exclusion. This exploratory, mixed methods, cross-sectional study described and explored the social exclusion of Australian childless women aged 25 to 44 years, and asked: what are the nature and extent of social exclusion of childless women; and do the nature and extent of exclusion vary for different types of childless women? A total of 776 childless female Australian residents aged 25 to 44 years completed a self-administered questionnaire. Quantitative data were collected on childlessness types, indicators of exclusion and perceived stigmatisation and exclusion due to being childless. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, One Way ANOVAs and Kruskal Wallis Analysis of Ranks. Qualitative data on childless women's experiences were inductively thematically analysed. Findings suggest societal-level pronatalism drives exclusion of Australian childless women. While exclusion occurs in all domains of life, childless women experience more exclusion, and perceive more exclusion due to being childless, in the social and civic domains than the service and economic domains. Circumstantially and involuntarily childless women, followed by voluntarily childless women, perceive more exclusion due to being childless than undecided and future childed women. Experiences are influenced by the nature of women's 'deviance' from pronatalism.

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Evidence indicates women with no children can experience pronatalism-driven stereotyping, stigmatisation and exclusion. This exploratory cross-sectional study described the social connection and exclusion of Australian women with no children during midlife (defined as aged 45 to 64 years). A total of 294 Australian midlife women with no children completed a self-administered online questionnaire. Data were collected on indicators of exclusion in the social, civic, service and economic domains of life, and participants' self-reported perceptions of being stereotyped, stigmatised and excluded because they have no children. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and, for differences between involuntarily childless, circumstantially childless and voluntarily childless women: One Way ANOVAs for normally distributed continuous data, and Kruskal Wallis Analyses of Ranks and Chi Square Tests for Independence for categorical data and non-normally distributed continuous data. The findings indicate midlife women feel negatively stereotyped because they have no children. The extent and quality of midlife women's resources and participation vary between and within the domains of life. However, midlife women reported feeling more excluded because they have no children in the social and civic domains than the service and economic domains. There are few differences between typologies of women with no children. Given that social exclusion is a key social determinant of health and wellbeing, it is essential to ensure all women have opportunities for connection in all domains of life in Australian society regardless of their motherhood status, by challenging pronatalism at all levels of society.

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