Full Description
Childlessness is not a new phenomenon, but empirical evidence from the demographic field has demonstrated that it is on the increase. Furthermore, childlessness has a number of consequences for both women and men, the communities in which they live, their psychic states, their social networks and the organisations in which they work.
Bringing together research from a wide range of scholarly disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, gender studies, social work and social policy, and underpinned by a feminist ontology this edited collection of original chapters provides an insight into the current state of the art research on the drivers, determinants, manifestations and outcomes of childlessness. The collection is intended to be a key resource for scholars, students and policymakers addressing this issue in a wide range of disciplinary contexts.
Contents
Introduction: Childlessness Through a Feminist Lens; Natalie SappletonPart One: Theoretical Perspectives On Voluntary and Involuntary Childlessness
Chapter 1. From Deviant Choice to Feminist Issue: A Historical Content Analysis of Scholarship on Voluntary Childlessness (1920 To 2013); Ingrid Lynch, Tracy Morison, Catriona Ida Macleod, Magda Mijas, Ryan Du Toit, and Simi Seemanthini
Chapter 2. What is it Like Being Involuntarily Childless? Searching for Ways of Understanding from a Psychological Perspective; Megumi Fieldsend
Chapter 3. Wanting to Want: Constructing the Dissident Childless Self; Anna Gotlib
Part Two: Structural and Agential Underpinnings of Childlessness
Chapter 4. Capital in Pronatalist Fields: Exploring The Influence of Economic, Social, Cultural and Symbolic Capital on Childbearing Habitus; Alyssa Mullins
Chapter 5. Social Connectedness, Inclusion and Support: Experiences of Women Without Children in a Pronatalist Society; Melissa Graham, Beth Turnbull, Hayley Mckenzie and Ann Taket
Chapter 6. "Join the Club" Or "Don't have Kids?": Exploring Contradictory Experiences, Pressures and Encouragement to have Children in Pronatalist Social Fields; Alyssa Mullins
Part Three: Intersectional Perspectives On Childlessness
Chapter 7. Are Loneliness and Regret the Inevitable Outcomes of Ageing and Childlessness?; Jenny Mercer and Ros O'Driscoll
Chapter 8. Age-Identity in Progress Narratives of Never-Married Childless Older Women; Kate De Medeiros and Robert L. Rubinstein
Part Four: Lived Experiences of Childlessness
Chapter 9. The Voluntary Childless Marriage; Laura Carroll
Chapter 10. Finding Mr Right; Helen Peterson
Chapter 11. Understanding the Employment Experiences of Women with no Children; Beth Turnbull, Melissa Graham and Ann Taket
Chapter 12. Gender Segregation, Stereotypes, Wellbeing and Childlessness: Evidence of the Links in Europe; Natalie Sappleton
Part Five: National Perspectives On Childlessness
Chapter 13. Childlessness in the Hungarian Context; Ivett Szalma and Judit Takács
Chapter 14. Stigma and Childlessness in Historical and Contemporary Japan; Kimiko Tanaka and Deborah Lowry
Chapter 15. The Childless Agenda in Germany; Nazli Kazanoglu
Postscript: Moving Forward: Towards a Feminist Understanding of 'Otherhood'; Natalie Sappleton
