While interest in the drivers, consequences, nature and manifestations of voluntary and involuntary childlessness increases, knowledge progress is hampered by poor linkages across disjointed research fields. The book brings together theoretical insights and empirical investigations into the phenomenon, united within a feminist conceptual framework.

This book is published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This open access book provides an overview of childlessness throughout Europe. It offers a collection of papers written by leading demographers and sociologists that examine contexts, causes, and consequences of childlessness in countries throughout the region.The book features data from all over Europe. It specifically highlights patterns of childlessness in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland. An additional chapter on childlessness in the United States puts the European experience in perspective. The book offers readers such insights as the determinants of lifelong childlessness, whether governments can and should counteract increasing childlessness, how the phenomenon differs across social strata and the role economic uncertainties play. In addition, the book also examines life course dynamics and biographical patterns, assisted reproduction as well as the consequences of childlessness. Childlessness has been increasing rapidly in most European countries in recent decades. This book offers readers expert analysis into this issue from leading experts in the field of family behavior. From causes to consequences, it explores the many facets of childlessness throughout Europe to present a comprehensive portrait of this important demographic and sociological trend.

In How to Be Childless: A History and Philosophy of Life Without Children, Rachel Chrastil explores the long and fascinating history of childlessness, putting this often-overlooked legacy in conversation with the issues that childless women and men face in the twenty-first century. Eschewing two dominant narratives, that the childless are either barren and alone, or that they are carefree and selfish, How to Be Childless instead argues that the lives of childless individuals from the past can help all of us expand our range of possibilities for the good life. In uncovering the voices and experiences of childless women from the past five hundred years, Chrastil demonstrates that the pathways to childlessness, so often simplified as "choice" and "circumstance," are far more complex and interweaving. Balanced, deeply researched, and richly realized, How to be Childless will empower readers, parents and childless alike, to navigate their lives with purpose.

While interest in the drivers, consequences, nature and manifestations of voluntary and involuntary childlessness increases, knowledge progress is hampered by poor linkages across disjointed research fields. The book brings together theoretical insights and empirical investigations into the phenomenon, united within a feminist conceptual framework.

The lucid, straightforward Preface of this Handbook by the two editors and the comprehenSIve perspec tives offered in the Introduction by one ofthem leave little for a Foreword to add. It is therefore limIted to two relevant but not intrinsically related points vis-a-vis research on marriage and the family in the interval since the fIrst Handbook (Christensen, 1964) appeared, namely: the impact on this research ofthe politicization of the New RIght! and of the Feminist Enlightenment beginning in the mid-sixties, about the time of the fIrst Handbook. In the late 1930s Willard Waller noted: "Fifty years or more ago about 1890, most people had the greatest respect for the institution called the family and wished to learn nothing whatever about it. . . . Everything that concerned the life of men and women and their children was shrouded from the light. Today much of that has been changed. Gone is the concealment of the way in which life begins, gone the irrational sanctity of the home. The aura of sentiment which once protected the family from discussion clings to it no more .... We wantto learn as much about it as we can and to understand it as thoroughly as possible, for there is a rising recognition in America that vast numbers of its families are sick-from internal frustrations and from external buffeting. We are engaged in the process of reconstructing our family institutions through criticism and discussion" (1938, pp. 3-4).

From Dr. Amy Blackstone, childfree woman, co-creator of the blog we're {not} having a baby, and nationally recognized expert on the childfree choice, comes a definitive investigation into the history and current growing movement of adults choosing to forgo parenthood: what it means for our society, economy, environment, perceived gender roles, and legacies, and how understanding and supporting all types of families can lead to positive outcomes for parents, non-parents, and children alike. As a childfree woman, Dr. Amy Blackstone is no stranger to a wide range of negative responses when she informs people she doesn't have--nor does she want--kids: confused looks, patronizing quips, thinly veiled pity, even outright scorn and condemnation. But she is not alone in opting out when it comes to children. More people than ever are choosing to forgo parenthood, and openly discussing a choice that's still often perceived as taboo. Yet this choice, and its effects personally and culturally, are still often misunderstood. Amy Blackstone, a professor of sociology, has been studying the childfree choice since 2008, a choice she and her husband had already confidently and happily made. Using her own and others' research as well as her personal experience, Blackstone delves into the childfree movement from its conception to today, exploring gender, race, sexual orientation, politics, environmentalism, and feminism, as she strips away the misconceptions surrounding non-parents and reveals the still radical notion that support of the childfree can lead to better lives and societies for all.

The concept of “Waithood” was developed by political scientist Diane Singerman to describe the expanding period of time between adolescence and full adulthood as young people wait to secure steady employment and marry. The contributors to this volume employ the waithood concept as a frame for richly detailed ethnographic studies of “youth in waiting” from a variety of world areas, including the Middle East Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the U.S, revealing that whether voluntary or involuntary, the phenomenon of youth waithood necessitates a recognition of new gender and family roles.

In a society in which most women grow up thinking they will become mothers-and in which many women go to great lengths to make that desire a reality -- not having a child is often met with incredulity and scorn. But as the author of this thoughtful and meticulously researched examination of childlessness points out, childless women are part of an ancient and respectable cultural tradition that includes biblical matriarchs, celibate saints, and nineteenth-century social reformers. Revealing the story of her own decision not to have children, Laurie Lisle draws from history, literature, religion and sociology to challenge the stigma attached to the condition of childlessness-and to offer encouragement and support to those women who have made the difficult decision themselves. Beginning with the difficult inner journey a woman faces before finally deciding or realizing she will not bear children,Without Childexplores the myth of the childless woman's rejection of the maternal instinct. It alsoexplores the childless woman's relationship to mothers and mothering, to her femininity, to men, to achievement, to her body, and to old age. Wide-ranging yet intimate, philosophical, yet clear-sighted, this important book does what no other has done before-presents childlessness in a multifaceted and positive light.

Chronicling astonishing shifts in public attitudes toward reproduction, May reveals the intersection between public life and the most private part of our lives--sexuality, procreation, and family.

Transition to Parenthood moves beyond a one-study focus and captures multidisciplinary work on all families making the transition to parenthood. The book covers societal trends, changes, and most importantly expectations. Focus is also placed on how families are impacted by their surroundings and their individual members. Strengths and limitations of current theories are discussed, as well as how the phenomenon of parenthood requires a combination of both macro- and micro-level theories.