Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T14:29:45.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Childlessness and intergenerational transfers: what is at stake?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2009

MARTIN KOHLI  and
MARCO ALBERTINI
MARTIN KOHLI*
Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
MARCO ALBERTINI
Affiliation:
Department of Educational Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
*
Address for correspondence: Martin Kohli, Department of Social and Political Sciences, European University Institute, Via dei Roccettini 9, I-50014 San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this introductory article for the special issue on Childlessness and Intergenerational Transfers, we first discuss the prior research literature and then overview the presented contributions. Up to now, childless older adults have been treated for the most part as both homogeneous and a problematic group. This does not do justice to the different pathways to childlessness: there are those who actively forgo having children, those who defer births so long that they involuntarily become childless, and those who are not fecund or lack a partner. It also neglects the changing social profile of the childless, e.g. the shift from less educated to more highly-educated women. Most importantly, it fails to recognise what childless older people give to others. The studies presented here aim to redress these two deficits in previous research. They examine how the consequences of childlessness are mediated by the pathways to and motivations for being childless and by factors such as gender, education and marital history, and they also examine what childless older adults provide to their families and to society at large. Such adults establish strong linkages with next-of-kin relatives, invest in non-family networks, and participate in voluntary and charitable activities, and broadly do so to a greater extent than older people with surviving children.

Keywords

childlessnesssocial participationintergenerational transferssocial networks
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 29 , Issue 8: Minimal Families: Childlessness and Intergenerational Transfers , November 2009 , pp. 1171 - 1183
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adloff, F. 2009. What encourages charitable giving and philanthropy? Ageing & Society, 29, 8, 1183–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akerlof, G. A. 1998. Men without children. Economic Journal, 108, 447, 571–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albertini, M. and Kohli, M. 2009. Is the generational link broken? What childless people give. Ageing & Society, 29, 8, xxx–xx.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bachrach, C. A. 1980. Childlessness and social isolation among the elderly. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42, 3, 627–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baru, A. and Dhingra, R. 2003. Social status of childless couples in three different ecological settings. The Anthropologist, 5, 247–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callan, V. J. 1985. Perceptions of parents, the voluntarily and involuntarily childless: a multidimensional scaling analysis. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 47, 4, 1045–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callan, V. J. 1987. The personal and marital adjustment of mothers and of voluntarily and involuntarily childless wives. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 49, 4, 847–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, N. L. and Badger, M. 1989. Social isolation and well-being. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 44, 5, S169–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Choi, N. G. 1994. Patterns and determinants of service utilization: comparisons of the childless elderly and elderly parents living with or apart from their children. The Gerontologist, 34, 3, 353–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Connolly, K. J., Edelman, R. J. and Cooke, I. D. 1987. Distress and marital problems associated with infertility. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 5, 1, 49–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeOllos, I. Y. and Kapinus, C. A. 2002. Aging childless individuals and couples: suggestions for new directions in research. Sociological Inquiry, 72, 1, 72–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dykstra, P. A. 1995. Loneliness among the never and formerly married: the importance of supportive friendships and a desire for independence. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 50B, 5, S321–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dykstra, P. A. and Hagestad, G. O. 2007. Roads less taken: developing a nuanced view of older adults without children. Journal of Family Issues, 28, 10, 1275–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dykstra, P. A. and Keizer, R. 2009. The well-being of childless men and fathers in mid-life. Ageing & Society, 29, 8, 1225–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frejka, T. and Sardon, J.-P. 2003. Childbearing Prospects in Low-fertility Countries: A Cohort Analysis. Kluwer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Gillespie, R. 2000. When no means no: disbelief, disregard and deviance as discourses of voluntary childlessness. Women's Studies International Forum, 23, 2, 223–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, R. 2003. Childfree and feminine: understanding the gender identity of voluntarily childless women. Gender and Society, 17, 1, 122–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
González, M.-J. and Jurado-Guerrero, T. 2006. Remaining childless in affluent economies: a comparison of France, West Germany, Italy and Spain, 1994–2001. European Journal of Population, 22, 4, 317–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinz, W. R. 1991. Status passages, social risks and the life course: a conceptual framework. In Heinz, W. R. (ed.), Theoretical Advances in Life Course Research. Deutscher Studien Verlag, Weinheim, Germany, 9–22.Google Scholar
Hurd, M. 2009. Inter-vivos giving by older people in the United States of America: who received financial gifts from the childless? Ageing & Society, 29, 8, 1205–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffries, S. and Konnert, C. 2002. Regret and psychological well-being among voluntarily and involuntarily childless women and mothers. International Journal of Ageing and Human Development, 54, 2, 89–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keith, P. M. 1983. A comparison of the resources of parents and childless men and women in very old age. Family Relations, 32, 3, 403–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kivett, V. R. and Learner, R. M. 1980. Perspectives on the childless rural elderly: a comparative analysis. The Gerontologist, 20, 6, 708–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kohler, H.-P. and Ortega, J. A. 2002. Tempo-adjusted period parity progression measures: assessing the implications of delayed childbearing for cohort fertility in Sweden, The Netherlands and Spain. Demographic Research, 6, 145–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohli, M. 2004. Intergenerational transfers and inheritance: a comparative view. In Silverstein, M. (ed.), Intergenerational Relations Across Time and Place. Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics 24, Springer Publishing Company, New York, 266–89.Google Scholar
Koropeckyj-Cox, T. and Call, V. R. A. 2007. Characteristics of older childless persons and parents: cross-national comparisons. Journal of Family Issues, 28, 10, 1362–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreyenfeld, M. and Konietzka, D. 2007. Die Analyse von Kinderlosigkeit in Deutschland: Dimensionen – Daten – Probleme [The analysis of childlessness in Germany: dimensions – statistics – problems]. In Konietzka, D. and Kreyenfeld, M. (eds), Ein Leben ohne Kinder: Kinderlosigkeit in Deutschland [Living Without Children: Childlessness in Germany]. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, Germany, 11–41.Google Scholar
LaMastro, V. 2001. Childless by choice? Attributions and attitudes concerning family size. Social Behavior and Personality, 29, 3, 231–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leridon, H. 2006. Sterility: causes and treatment. In Caselli, G., Vallin, J. and Wunsch, G. (eds), Demography: Analysis and Synthesis. Volume 1, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 457–65.Google Scholar
Lesthaeghe, R. 1995. The second demographic transition: an interpretation. In Mason, J. and Jensen, A. M. (eds), Gender and Family Change in Industrialised Countries. Clarendon, Oxford, 17–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Letherby, G. 2002. Childless and bereft? Stereotypes and realities in relation to ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ childlessness and womanhood. Sociological Inquiry, 72, 1, 7–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lisle, L. 1996. Without Child: Challenging the Stigma of Childlessness. Ballantine, New York.Google Scholar
Monach, J. H. 1993. Childless: No Choice. The Experience of Involuntary Childlessness. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Neugarten, B. L. and Datan, N. 1973. Sociological perspectives on the life cycle. In Baltes, P. B. and Schaie, K. W. (eds), Life-span Developmental Psychology: Personality and Socialization. Academic, Orlando, Florida, 53–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nomaguchi, K. M. and Milkie, M. A. 2003. Costs and rewards of children: the effects of becoming parent on adults' lives. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 65, 2, 356–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Bryant, S. L. 1985. Neighbors' support of older widows who live alone in their own homes. The Gerontologist, 25, 3, 305–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Park, K. 2002. Stigma management among the voluntarily childless. Sociological Perspectives, 45, 1, 21–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinquart, M. 2003. Loneliness in married, widowed, divorced and never-married older adults. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 20, 1, 31–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Remennik, L. 2000. Childless in the land of imperative motherhood: stigma and coping among infertile Israeli women. Sex Roles, 43, 11/12, 821–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowland, D. T. 2007. Historical trends in childlessness. Journal of Family Issues, 28, 10, 1311–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubinstein, R. L., Alexander, B. L., Goodman, M. and Luborsky, M. 1991. Key relationships of never-married, childless older women: a cultural analysis. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 46, 5, S270–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sardon, J.-P. 2002. Evolution démographique récente des pays développés [Recent demographic evolution in developed countries]. Population, 57, 1, 123–70.Google Scholar
Sardon, J.-P. 2003. Childlessness. In Demeny, P. and McNicoll, G. (eds), Encyclopedia of Population. Macmillan, New York, 128–30.Google Scholar
Schröder-Butterfill, E. and Marianti, R. 2006. A framework for understanding old-age vulnerabilities. Ageing & Society, 26, 1, 9–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Settersen, R. A. Jr and Hagestad, G. O. 1996. What's the latest? Cultural age deadlines for family transitions. The Gerontologist, 36, 2, 178–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shkolnikov, V. M., Andreev, E., Houle, M. R. and Vaupel, J. W. 2004. The Concentration of Reproduction in Cohorts of US and European Women. Working Paper 27, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spielauer, M. 2004. Childlessness and the Concentration of Reproduction in Austria. Working Paper 28, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, A. and Young-DeMarco, L. 2001. Four decades of trends in attitudes towards family issues in the United States: the 1960s through the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63, 4, 1009–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toulemon, L. 1996. La cohabitation hors mariage s'installe dans la durée [Cohabitation outside marriage is here to stay]. Population, 51, 3, 675–715.Google Scholar
Townsend, P. 1957. The Family Life of Old People. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Twenge, J. M., Campbell, K. W. and Foster, C. A. 2003. Parenthood and marital satisfaction: a meta-analytic review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 3, 574–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Umberson, D. 1987. Family status and health behaviors: social control as a dimension of social integration. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 28, 3, 306–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
United Nations Organisation (UNO) 2003. Partnership and Reproductive Behaviour in Low-fertility Countries. Report ESA/P/WP 177, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UNO, New York.Google Scholar
Wachter, K. W. 1997. Kinship resources for the elderly. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B352, 1811–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weltoft, G. R., Burstrom, B. and Rosen, M. 2004. Premature mortality among lone fathers and childless men. Social Science and Medicine, 59, 7, 1449–59.Google Scholar
Wenger, C. G. 2001. Ageing without children: rural Wales. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 16, 1, 79–109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wenger, C. G. 2009. Childlessness at the end of life: evidence from rural Wales. Ageing & Society, 29, 8, 1241–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar