Voluntary And Involuntary Childlessness In The United States 1955 1973

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 a world full of messages about the joys of motherhood, ticking biological clocks, pronatalist ideologies, and socio-cultural imperatives for women to mother, what does the alternative look like? That is, what is the experience of women who choose, or find themselves without progeny, when they are deemed "other," instead of being a "mother"? This anthology of interdisciplinary work links to sociology, anthropology, psychology, demography, religion, language, literature, popular media, medicine and child and family studies. Are women that choose to be childfree always narcissistic, self-obsessed, and lonely? Or can they be free, mobile, and successful? Do all women who choose to be childfree do it in the same way or have the same motivation? What is the role of age, partnership status, trauma, or poverty in this decision? Using techniques such as literature review, ethnographic interviews, autoethnography, and textual analysis and reframing, these sixteen authors from around the globe unpack largely pronatalist, racist, sexist, and heteronormative views and assumptions about childfree women.

Women’s physiology evolved to aid reproduction, not to reduce disease. Any trait—however detrimental to post-reproductive health—is preserved in the next generation if it increases the chances of having offspring who will survive and reproduce. For this reason, the author argues, many common diseases are especially difficult for women to prevent.

Finally, here is an enlightening and empowering book that defines motherhood from a feminist perspective and then explores the implications of that definition. Feminist authors examine some of women’s full, rich, and varied thoughts and experiences about motherhood. In contrast to the too often accepted male notions of what constitutes a “good’mother or a “normal” family, this important book presents a comprehensive and balanced view of motherhood--as women have observed and experienced it. The major issues surrounding motherhood today are closely examined--the pervasive problem of mother-blaming and mother-hating and solutions to overcome it; ageism, sexism, and motherhood; relationships between mothers and daughters; relationships between stepmothers and stepchildren; motherhood and sex roles within the family; adoption; infertility; and childlessness. Special insight is also provided into the concerns of women who are mothers--lesbians, women of color, mothers of biracial children, and adoptive mothers of children from different cultures. Woman-Defined Motherhood is must reading for women, including both mothers and daughters, for therapists and other professionals supporting women, and for anyone interested in mothering.

`The most up-to-date survey of the range of research in contemporary sociology, extremely useful to students, teachers, and researchers alike. Indispensable for collective and personal libraries′ - Immanuel Wallerstein, Maison des Sciences de l′Homme, Paris This unique Handbook provides state-of-the-art reviews of sociology conducted by prominent scholars. Drawing on dedicated knowledge and expertise, the book constitutes an unrivalled guide to the central theoretical and methodological perspectives in the discipline as a whole. The book is organized into six parts: o conceptual perspectives o social and cultural differentiation o changing institutions and collective action o demography, cities and housing o art and leisure o social problems Each chapter includes a comprehensive review of the literature, covering the full range of work from contrasting traditions of thought and approaches. No existing work matches this Handbook for scholarly coverage and relevance. It is a primary resource for understanding the discipline. As such, it will appeal to lecturers, researchers and advanced graduate and undergraduate students in Sociology.

An accessible and practical guide to the use of applied regression models in testing and evaluating hypotheses dealing with social relationships, with example applications using relevant statistical methods in both Stata and R.

Disease and Fertility covers the diseases that can cause population subfecundity. This book is organized into six parts encompassing 20 chapters that provide detailed information on each of these diseases for evaluation of quantitative impact on fecundity and population fertility. After briefly presenting an overview of the demography of subfecundity, this book goes on exploring the pathophysiology and effect on fecundity of various diseases, which are classified into three groups. The first group includes the nonsexually transmitted diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria, filariasis, schistosomiasis, African sleeping sickness, and Chaga's disease. The second group is composed of the sexually transmitted diseases, including gonorrhea, nongonococcal cervicitis and urethritis and their complications, syphilis, and genital herpes, mycoplasma, and chlamydia. The third group is composed f phenomena that can cause pelvic inflammatory disease and other adverse reproductive sequelae, such as induced abortion, childbirth, the intrauterine device, and female circumcision. The final chapter considers the problems encountered in trying to link a particular disease to the fertility of a specific population. This book is of great value to population students, workers in medical community, and professionals in disciplines that involve the study of both health and population.