Exploring the childless universe: Profiles of women and men without children in Italy

Life-Course Trajectories of Childless Women: Country-Specific or Universal?

While existing research has documented complexities in biographies of childless women, few studies to date have systematically examined the life-course pathways of the childless from a comparative, cross-country perspective. In this paper, we analyse biographies of childless women in four countries-Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United States-in order to investigate whether pathways into childlessness are country-specific or commonly shared across institutional, cultural, and geographical settings. Partnership, education, and employment histories are examined using sequence analysis with dynamic Hamming distance and cluster analysis. Discrepancy analysis indicates a country-effect in women's biographies although life-course patterns identified in each country share similarities. Overall, seven life-course trajectories have been identified, with the most numerous cluster comprising single, working women who completed their education at a relatively young age. The results highlight a marked variation in the life-courses of childless women. Put together, these findings provide descriptive evidence for both country-specificity and cross-country similarity in the pathways to childlessness.

Work-family trajectories and health: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

Work and family lives interact in complex ways across individuals' life courses. In the past decade, many studies constructed work-family trajectories, some also examined the relation with health. The aims of this systematic review were to summarise the evidence from studies constructing work-family trajectories, and to synthesise the evidence on the association between work-family trajectories and health.

METHODS

We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, SocINDEX and Web of Science databases. Key search terms related to work, family and trajectories. Studies that built combined work-family trajectories or examined the relationship between work and family trajectories were included. Risk of bias was assessed independently by two authors. The identified work-family trajectories were summarised and presented for men and women, age cohorts and contexts. The evidence on the association with health as antecedent or consequence was synthesised.

RESULTS

Forty-eight studies, based on 29 unique data sources, were included. Thirty-two studies (67%) were published in 2015 or later, and sequence analysis was the primary analytic technique used to construct the trajectories (n = 43, 90%). Trajectories of women were found to be more diverse and complex in comparison with men. Work-family trajectories differed by age cohorts and contexts. Twenty-three studies (48%) examined the association between work-family trajectories and health and most of these studies found significant associations. The results indicate that work-family trajectories characterised by an early transition to parenthood, single parenthood, and weak ties to employment are associated with worse health outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

Work-family trajectories differed greatly between men and women, but differences seemed to decrease in the youngest cohorts. Given the current changes in labour markets and family formation processes, it is important to investigate the work and family lives of younger cohorts. Work-family trajectories were associated with health at different life stages. Future research should examine longitudinal associations of work-family trajectories with health and focus on elucidating why and under which circumstances some trajectories are associated with better or worse health compared with other trajectories.

Female employment and first childbirth in Italy: what news?

In the last decades, female participation in the labour market has been found to be increasingly associated with higher fertility levels in high-income countries—albeit to a lesser extent in countries characterised by poor welfare support to working mothers. Among the latter camp, Italy is an intriguing case study, which is marked by lower female labour force participation and fertility rates when compared to most other European countries. Recent macro-level evidence suggests that a reverse in the female employment/fertility relationship is gradually taking place in Italy, driven largely by the Northern regions. However, the evolution of the relationship between female employment and fertility has (to the best of my knowledge) never been addressed at the micro-level. Through the use of individual-level retrospective data, this study analyses the link between female employment and fertility, paying special attention to differences between Northern and Southern Italy, and its evolution over time. The results suggest that female employment began to be positively associated to fertility at the individual level, both in Northern and Southern Italy (although to slightly different extents), from 2010 onwards.

Work and fertility in Taiwan: how do women's and men's career sequences associate with fertility outcomes?

There has been much debate over the micro-level relationship between employment situations and fertility in Europe and Northern America. However, related research in East Asia is scant, although countries in this region have some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Moreover, most studies analyse the employment-fertility relationship from a static perspective and only for women, which underemphasises life course dynamics and gender heterogeneity of employment careers and their fertility implications. Drawing on retrospective data from the 2017 Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), this study explores women's and men's career trajectories between ages 18 and 40 in Taiwan using sequence cluster analyses. It also examines how career variations associate with different timing and quantum of birth. Empirical results show that economically inactive women experience faster motherhood transitions and have more children by age 40 than women with stable full-time careers. For men, having an unstable career associates with slower fatherhood transitions and a lower number of children. For both genders, self-employed people are the earliest in parenthood transitions and have the highest number of children by midlife. Our findings demonstrate sharp gender contrasts in employment careers and their diversified fertility implications in low-fertility Taiwan.

Male childlessness across the adult life course: A case study addressing a potentially 'vulnerable' population

BACKGROUND

Like other Latin American countries, over the past half-century, Colombia has experienced rapid urbanization, dramatic fertility decline, and massive educational expansion. These socio-demographic changes have transformed gender roles and, with them, the landscape surrounding reproductive decisions, family life, and opportunities in other life 'domains.' I draw on the 'life course cube' (LCC) approach, which frames individual actions within a multidimensional behavioral process shaped by interdependencies between time, life domains, and levels to explore Colombian male childlessness.

OBJECTIVE

I seek to answer two questions: How does Colombian non-fatherhood vary across the life course (with respect to overall prevalence and associated factors)? and How do men frame their non-fatherhood, and, especially, how do they envision a future without children?

METHODOLOGY

To address the first question, I used the 2015 Colombian Demographic and Health Survey's men's dataset (N > 30,000) to explore the overall level of male childlessness across age/generational groups and separate voluntary/involuntary childlessness. Then, using generalized linear models, I analyzed the relationships between different life domains (e.g. education, employment) and non-fatherhood at time points representing early-, mid-, and later-life childlessness (among men in their thirties, forties, and fifties). To address the second question, I used qualitative data from in-depth life history interviews I conducted with male (N = 7) and female (N = 28) parents/non-parents in Bogotá, analyzing connections between different 'levels' of men's experiences: their inner feelings, past and (envisioned) future actions, and societal factors framing childlessness.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The quantitative findings indicate that male childlessness across the adult life course is strongly associated with later start of first union/never entering a union, and with small ideal family size. Later-life, definitive childlessness is also strongly associated with relative economic disadvantage and lower-prestige occupations, though early-life fatherhood postponement is not. Qualitatively, interviewed men expressed more worry and less preparation for the future than childless women. Understanding 'vulnerability' as 'the dynamics of stress and resources across the life course', I discuss these findings, paying attention to older non-fathers' potential psycho-social, relational, and socioeconomic vulnerability. Therefore, this work seeks to contribute to the literature on the determinants and experiences of male childlessness, focusing on a Latin American perspective.

The diversity of pathways to childlessness in the Czech Republic: The union histories of childless men and women

Despite the fact that not having a partner is a strong predictor for remaining childless, few studies have explored the heterogeneity of partnership trajectories among childless persons. This article fills the gap in knowledge about the pathways to childlessness in Central Europe by exploring the within-group diversity of partnership trajectories among childless persons between the ages of 18 and 40 under state socialism and during the post-1989 transformation in the Czech Republic. Based on data from the Gender and Generations Survey, we identify different types of union history among childless persons using sequence analysis and optimal matching-based clustering. Moreover, we directly assess variations in partnership trajectories across gender, education, and birth cohorts by analysing sequence discrepancy and the complexity index. In both the state-socialist and post-socialist contexts the most prevalent trajectory types were 'never partnered' and 'long-term partnerships', with only a small proportion of unstable partnership trajectories. Childless women experience more diverse and complex trajectories than childless men and their partnership trajectories vary more pronouncedly across educational groups than those of men. In contrast, cohort differences are more pronounced among childless men. We discuss the findings against the backdrop of the transition from a state-socialist to a post-socialist welfare state. The findings thus contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the social and historical embeddedness of pathways to childlessness and show how the links between gender, education, and family life-courses are context-specific.

Canadian Support for IVF Access and Use

OBJECTIVE

Apply Weiner's attribution-affect-action (AAA) model to the context of societal support for access to assisted reproductive technology (ART).

METHODS

Five hundred and fifty-four Canadians were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 vignette conditions describing reproductively challenged women differentiated by the root cause of their need for ART. Following this, participants completed an online questionnaire measuring the components of the AAA model.

RESULTS

The overall expected relationships among the AAA framework variables were found. Participants were least willing to support access to ART for women perceived as relatively more responsible for their fertility issues and who elicited lower levels of sympathy, whereas participants were most willing to support access for women viewed as less responsible and who elicited more sympathy. Additionally, participants were most supportive of general access to ART and least supportive when asked to offer personal funds to assist the women with access.

CONCLUSION

These findings have potential implications for Canadian health care policy decisions on funding fertility treatments through the universal health care system. Further research on this issue, as well as the development and testing of interventions aimed at addressing beliefs around equitable and inclusive access to ART, are warranted.

Childlessness and low fertility in context: evidence from a multilevel analysis on 20 European countries

Low fertility and childlessness have been largely interpreted as being driven by the same mechanisms, although they may be qualitatively different phenomena. The present article discusses this assumption and studies determinants of childlessness by comparing them with determinants of low fertility. Drawing on micro-level data from the European Labour Force Survey (2005–2010) and macro-level data from external data sources, it enters the debate on the micro- and macro-determinants of fertility and childlessness by analysing women who live with or without children when they are 35–39 years old. By means of a series of multilevel models, it discusses the moderating role of the institutional and normative context in the link between individual characteristics and childlessness, and it analyses the extent to which micro- and macro-level determinants of childlessness differ from factors associated with low-fertility. The results indicate that the macro-level factors associated with individual childlessness are similar to those identified in the literature on low fertility. However, interesting differences emerge in how reconciliation and family support policies relate on childlessness and low-fertility across different groups of women. Overall, these findings highlight the importance to study childlessness as a phenomenon on its own, distinguishing its determinants from determinants of (low) fertility.

The Heterogeneity of Partnership Trajectories to Childlessness in Germany

In recent decades, childlessness has increased across many European countries. In addition to socioeconomic characteristics, having a partner is considered a prerequisite in most fertility studies. Yet, still little is known about the partnership biographies of childless women and men. We assess the heterogeneity in the partnership trajectories of childless persons in Germany and explore compositional differences of partnership trajectories by gender and education. We use data from the German Family Panel to reconstruct partnership biographies reflecting the occurrence and frequency of different partnership states (singleness, living apart together, cohabitation, marriage). The sample comprises women and men born 1971-1973 whose life courses are observed from age 18-40. Applying sequence and cluster analysis, we identify five patterns of partnership trajectories: (1) 'Marriage' (14.6%); (2) 'Long-term cohabitation' (11.8%) with one partner; (3) 'Serial cohabitation' (15.6%); (4) 'LAT' (18.8%), long-term/multiple living-apart-together relationships; and (5) 'Single' (39.3%), long-term singleness. Men are overrepresented in the 'Single' cluster, especially if highly educated. Women are more often married and more likely to experience long-lasting singleness or multiple LAT episodes when being highly educated. We speculate that theories predicting high levels of childlessness in contexts where gender norms and work-family policies do not account for the increasing gender equality in education and labor force participation might also explain differences in the pathways leading to childlessness. Generally, our findings point at a more elaborate conceptualization of childlessness that moves away from a binary cross-sectional indicator and set the ground for future cross-national comparisons.

Family formation trajectories across borders: A sequence analysis approach to Senegalese migrants in Europe

This article examines the relationship between the timing of international migration and family formation trajectories (union formation and fertility) of Sub-Saharan African migrants in Europe. Longitudinal life-history data from Senegalese migrants in France, Italy and Spain, collected as part of the Migrations between Africa and Europe (MAFE) project are used. Applying sequence analysis techniques and distinguishing between men and women, individuals are grouped into different clusters according to the (dis-)similarities in their family formation trajectories before and after migration. Furthermore, multinomial logistic regression models are used to test associations between individual and contextual characteristics and the obtained clusters. The results show important differences between men and women regarding their migration-family formation trajectories. Moreover, the interrelatedness of family and migration events was more pronounced among women than men. The regression analysis indicates that male and female trajectories are related in particular to age and the country of destination, but there are also differences by educational level. The findings stress the importance of differentiating between men and women when studying the family formation behavior of migrants.