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Childlessness is defined as the condition of being without children. Childlessness may have personal, social and/or political significance. There are two distinguishable types of childlessness, voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary childlessness, also described as childfree, in women of childbearing age or older whom is fertile, is making the conscious decision to not reproduce. In men, it is the physical ability to procreate but choosing not to. To be childless not by choice is defined as involuntary childlessness.

Reasons for childlessness include, but are not limited to, the following.

Voluntary

• celibacy,or the abstenation of sexual intercourse.
• personal choice, that is, having the physical, mental, and financial capability to have children but chose not to.(voluntary childlessness)

Involuntary

• infertility, defined as the inability of a person or persons to ((conceive)), due to complications related to either or both the woman or the man. This is regarded as the most prominent reason for involuntary childlessness. Biological causes of infertility vary due to the many organs of both sexes that must function properly for conception to take place. Infertility is not just applicable to those who have never been able to conceive, but to conceive a second or subsequent pregnancy. This is called secondary infertility. ^[1]
  Main article: Infertility
  • In men that have the necessary reproductive organs to procreate, infertility can be caused by low sperm count due to endocrine problems, drugs, radiation, or infection. There may be testicular malformations, hormone imbalance, or blockage of the man's duct system. Although many of these can be treated through surgery or hormonal substitutions, some may be more indefinite. ^[2]
  • For women, problems with fertilization mainly comes from either structural problems in the Fallopian tube or uterus and problems releasing eggs. Infertility may be caused by blockage of the Fallopian tube due to malformations, infections, and/or scar tissue. For example, Endometriosis sometimes referred to as the "career women's disease" can cause infertility with the growth of endometrial tissue in the Fallopian tubes and/or around the ovaries. Endometriosis is referred to as the "career women's disease" because it is usually more common in women in their mid-twenties and older, especially when postponed childbirth has taken place. ^[3]Another major cause of infertility in women may be due to the inability to ovulate. Malformation of the eggs themselves may complicate conception. For example, polycystic ovarian syndrome is when the eggs only partially developed within the ovary and there is an excess of male hormones.
• The death of the infant either before, during, or shortly after birth. Infant death can happen for any number of reasons, usually being medical or environmental. Death can be attributed to factors such as, inadequate access to proper medical care, biological malformations, maternal complications, and/or accidents and unintentional injuries. An unsuitable environment with little to no resources may also play a role in infant mortality. (infant or child death)
• medical or gynaecological problems, this could include a lack of maternal medical care before or after birth and damage obtained from a previous pregnancy. ^[4]
• lack of appropriate resources,such as finances, adequate medical care, communal/family support, etc.
• environment, this is related to availability of resources, whether emotional, physical, or biological
• lack of a partner, or lack of willingness from partner.
• social infertility.^[5]

Those that, for whatever reason, are affected from involuntary childlessness do have options available to them. A person or persons that have the necessary components to reproduce, but may have a low sperm count or problems with ovulation could look into options such as artificial insemination or intracytoplasmic sperm injection(ICIS). Artificial insemination is the process in which sperm is collected via masturbation and inserted into the uterus immediately after ovulation. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection is a more recent technique that involves injecting a single sperm directly into an egg, the egg is then placed in the uterus by in vitro fertilization. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the process in which a mature ovum is surgically removed from a women's ovary, placed in a medium with sperm until fertilization occurs and then placed in the women's uterus. About 50,000 babies in the United States are conceived this way and are sometimes referred to as "test-tube babies." ^[6]Other forms of assisted reproductive technology include, gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT) and zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT). Fertility drugs also may improve the chances of conception in women.

Due to complex organ complications some individuals can not produce a biological child; for those individuals an option may be surrogacy or adoption. Surrogacy, in this case a surrogate mother, is the process in which a woman becomes pregnant (usually by artificial insemination or surgical implantation of a fertilized egg) for the purpose of carrying the fetus to term for another woman or couple. Another option may be adoption; to adopt is to take voluntarily (a child of other parents) as one's own child.

• Infertility is estimated to affect 10 to 15 percent of the population.^[7]
• One out of every five couples are faced with involuntary childlessness.^[7]
• Infertility has increased by 4 percent since the 1980s, mostly from problems with fecundity due to an increase in age. ^[8]
• In several developed countries a growing proportion of women and their partners are not having children. Recent estimates of permanent childlessness for women in the United Kingdom and the United States of America of 20% and 22% respectively.^[7] Estimates for 2000 suggested that 24% of Australian women currently in their reproductive years would never have children.^[7]
• About 40 percent of the issues involved with infertility are due to the man, another 40 percent due to the woman, and 20 percent result from complications with both patners. ^[9]
• 70,000 babies are conceived by donor insemination in the United States every year.
• When the problem is entirely hormonal fertility drugs have a success rate from 50-70 percent.
• For women under 35 years of age, the success rate of in vitro fertilization treatment is 65-83 percent.
• The average amount paid to surrogate is usually $20,000 to $25,000.

For most individuals, for most of history, childlessness has been regarded as a great personal tragedy, involving much emotional pain and grief, especially when it resulted from a failure to conceive or from the death of a child. Before conception was well-understood, childlessness was usually blamed on the woman and this in itself added to the high level of negative emotional and social effects of childlessness.

• Psychological Effects

The way in which involuntary childlessness people cope with their loss is expected to influence the distress they experience and the possible symptoms related to this distress, such as health problems, anxiety, depression and bereavement. People dealing with involuntary childless can be affected as though they have gone through a death of a child, which can result in depression. ^[10]

Socially, childlessness has also resulted in financial stress and sometimes ruin in societies which depend on their offspring to contribute economically and to support other members of the family or tribe. “In agricultural societies about 20 per cent of all couples would not have children because of problems for at least one of the partners. Worry about assuring the desired birth rate could become an important part of family life … even after a first child was born. … In agricultural societies up to half of all children born would die within two years … (Excess surviving children could among other things, be sent to childless families to provide labour there, reducing upkeep demands at home.) When a population disaster hit – like war or major disease – higher birth rates might briefly be feasible to fill out community ranks.”^[11] “Some wealthy families also adopted children, as a means of providing heirs in cases of childlessness or where no sons had been born.”[5] The monetary incentives offered by westerners desire for children is so strong that a commercial market in the child laundering business exists.

Specific instances of childlessness, especially in cases of royal succession, but more generally for people in positions of power or influence, have had enormous impacts on politics, culture and society. In many cases, a lack of a male child was also considered a type of childlessness, since male children were needed as heirs to property and titles. Examples of historical impacts of actual or potential childlessness include:

• Elizabeth I of England was childless, choosing not to marry in part to prevent political instability in the kingdom, which passed on her death from the House of Tudor to the House of Stuart.
• Henry VIII of England divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon, to whom he had been married for more than 20 years, because she had not produced a male heir to the throne. This decision set in train a break between the English and the Roman churches that reverberated across Europe for centuries.
• Queen Anne had seventeen pregnancies but none of her children survived so the throne passed from the House of Stuart to the House of Hanover.
• Napoléon’s first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais, did not bear him any children so he divorced her and married another in order to produce an heir.
• The lack of a male heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan brought the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis.^[12][13]

{{fontcolor|red|All forms of contraception have played a role in voluntary childlessness over time, but oral contraception alone has profoundly contributed to changes in societal ideas and norms.

History of Oral Contraception

• Margaret Sanger, an activist in 1914, was an important figure during the reproductive rights movement. She coined the term "birth control" and opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. Sanger collaborated with many others to make the first oral contraception possible, these persons include: Gregory Pincus, John Rock, Frank Colton, and Katherine McCormick. The pill was approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for contraceptive use in the year 1960 and although it was controversial, it remained the most popular form of birth control in the U.S. until 1967 when there was a rise in publicity about the possible health risks associated with the pill; consequently sales dropped twenty-four percent. In the year 1988 the original high-dose pill was taken off the market and replaced with a low-dose pill that was considered to have less risks and some health benefits. ^[14]

Societal Impact

• The availability of oral contraception during the late 1900s was directly related to the women's rights movement by establishing, for the first time, a mass distribution of a way to control fertility. The pill gave women the opportunity to make different life choices they may not previously been able to make. For example, furthering their career. This led to monumental changes in the current gender and family roles. Voluntary childlessness, in relation to contraception has influenced women's health, laws and policies, interpersonal relationships, feminist issues, and sexual practices among adults and adolescents. ^[15]

In the 20th and 21st centuries, when control over conception became reliable in some countries, childlessness is having an enormous impact on national planning and financial planning.^[16]

• Infanticide
• List of international adoption scandals
• Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day
• Reproductive technology
• Tax on childlessness
• Decreţei

Guthrie, Gillian (2012) Childless: reflections on life's longing for itself Leichhardt, N.S.W.: A&A Book Publishing ISBN 978-0-9870899-7-7

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• Childless Not By Choice

Category:Family Category:Children