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

Julie Ann Pooley · Lauren J. Breen

80 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Health Psychology

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Family Dynamics and Relationships Reproductive Health and Contraception Reproductive Health and Technologies

Abstract

Choosing not to have children is considered a deviation from cultural norms, particularly the dominant pronatalist discourse; this is especially so for women. However, little research has documented the experience of Australian women who have consciously chosen to remain childless. Ten voluntarily childfree women participated in unstructured interviews about their choice and its ramifications. The data analysis revealed three broad themes - the experiences and processes of making the choice; the ongoing effects of their choice, ranging from support and acceptance to pressure and discrimination; and no regret as the women described engaging in meaningful, generative activities that contributed to society.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 80 citations exist upstream.

References

1994Phenomenological research methods 2026Childhood and Society 1965Childhood and Society 2007Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?2003Reflexive Accounts and Accounts of Reflexivity in Qualitative Data Analysis 2003Childfree And Feminine 2002Stigma Management among the Voluntarily Childless 2002Childless and Bereft?: Stereotypes and Realities in Relation to ‘Voluntary’ and ‘Involuntary’ Childlessness and Womanhood

Cited by

2019Development of Attitudes Toward Voluntary Childlessness Scale and Its Associations With Ambivalent Sexism in Turkey 2016Pronatalism and Social Exclusion in Australian Society: Experiences of Women in their Reproductive Years with No Children 2022Prevalence, age of decision, and interpersonal warmth judgements of childfree adults 2019“Never Say Never?” Heterosexual, Bisexual, and Lesbian Women’s Accounts of Being Childfree 2018Reviewing pronatalism: a summary and critical analysis of prior research examining attitudes towards women without children

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.