Through the Lenses of Gender, Race, and Class: Students’ Perceptions of Childless/Childfree Individuals and Couples

Abstract

Earlier research has documented negative perceptions of childless couples, particularly the voluntarily childfree, among college students. In this project we used hypothetical vignettes to assess variations in students' (N= 478) perceptions of childless couples related to the couple's race, occupations of husband and wife, and assumed reasons for childlessness. Perceptions were strongly influenced by occupational status and gender, but we found few race differences. Neither infertility nor chosen childlessness was rated negatively, but couples were rated more positively if they were perceived as temporarily rather than permanently childless. Our findings suggest that delayed parenthood is regarded as normative and that students have few negative biases regarding infertility or chosen childlessness. Perceptions were strongly conditioned by economic and employment considerations, which reflect current concerns about balancing work and family trajectories.

“It’s the Choices You Make That Get You There”: Decision-Making Pathways of Childfree Women

“…Existing research uses many terms to describe childfree women: voluntary childless (Callan, 1983;Heaton et al, 1999;Kelly, 2009;Majumdar, 2004;Morell, 2000;Park, 2002), intentionally childless (Feldman, 1981;Morell, 1994), voluntarily childfree (Koropeckyj-Cox, Romano, & Moras, 2007), childless by choice (Park, 2005), and childless (McAllister & Clarke, 1998). We use childfree and childfreedom because childless connotes a loss of something (Bartlett, 1994;Clark, 2012;DeLyser, 2011;Gillespie, 2003;Ireland, 1993;Lisle, 1999;McEvoy et al, 1984;Tomczak, 2012;Vesper, 2008;Vinson, Mollen, & Smith, 2010).…”

Reconsidering Childfreedom: A Feminist Exploration of Discursive Identity Construction in Childfree LiveJournal Communities

“…Large-scale surveys indicate that people generally view voluntarily childless individuals more negatively than parents and involuntarily childless people (Ganong, Coleman, & Mapes, 1990) and more negatively than temporarily childless people (Koropeckyj-Cox et al, 2007). Stereotypes surrounding voluntarily childless individuals continue to persist because ''there is a general assumption, generally unquestioned .…”

“…Women who choose childlessness have been viewed as desperate or selfish (Letherby, 2002), and mothers have rated voluntarily childless women as materialistic and nonconforming (Callan, 1983). Research has shown that voluntarily childless women are stereotyped more critically than are voluntarily childless men (Koropeckyj-Cox et al, 2007); however, voluntarily childless men are viewed as less driven and less caring compared to involuntarily childless men and parents (Lampman & Dowling-Guyer, 1995), illustrating how experiences of voluntarily childless individuals are gendered. Furthermore, negative perceptions are more likely to come from men (Koropeckyj-Cox & Pendell, 2007b) and people who are older, have children, and are less educated (Koropeckyj-Cox & Pendell, 2007a).…”

“…Scholars have employed an array of labels to describe this group of people, including voluntarily childless (e.g., Gillespie, 2000;Houseknecht, 1987;Jeffries & Konnert, 2002), childfree (e.g., Baber & Dreyer, 1986;Campbell, 2003;Durham, 2008;Gillespie, 2003;Koropeckyj-Cox, Romano, & Moras, 2007), and childless by choice (e.g., Paul, 2001;Reti, 1992;Veevers, 1980). A convincing argument has been made to adopt childfree over voluntarily childless and childless by choice to recognize the agency of the individual through the suffix-free rather than-less (Bartlett, 1996).…”

A phenomenological exploration of the childfree choice in a sample of Australian women

“…A survey of 7,448 Australian women aged from 22 to 27 years revealed that 9.1% desire to remain childfree The conscious choice to remain childless automatically places women outside the constraints of cultural and societal expectations underpinned by an ideology of pronatalism (Park, 2005). Pronatalism encourages an increase in birth rate and reinforces the sociopolitical, familial and religious obligations of producing children for the good of the country and future generations (Rowlands & Lee, 2006); together, these provide a powerful mandate for the value of parenthood as a cultural norm (Koropeckyj-Cox, Romano & Moras, 2007).Furthermore, there is an expectation that married individuals have a civic and moral responsibility to have children, and that the couple should automatically want to do so (Veevers, 1975). The pronatalism mandate is reinforced by sociocultural influences that render parenting as a highly desirable life choice.…”