Journal of Family Issues Volume 28 Number 10 © 2007 Sage ...

Historical Trends inChildlessnessDonald T. RowlandThe Australian National University, Canberra

Changes in the rates of childlessness over time are explored using European,Australian, American, and Japanese data from censuses, national registers,and large-scale surveys. The trends are remarkably similar across the coun-tries for which data are available: a peak in childlessness rates for the 1880-1910 birth cohorts, a more or less continuous drop across the 1910-1945 birthcohorts, and a steady rise across the cohorts born after the Second World War.Thus, contemporary older adults (particularly the “young old”) belong togenerations for which the proportions childless are near the minimum everrecorded. The article examines the factors associated with the changes inrates of childlessness, and more particularly trends in marriage (e.g., medianage at marriage and the proportions marrying), trends in family formation(e.g., median age at the first birth and average family size), and the role ofvoluntary and involuntary factors.

Keywords: childlessness; childlessness in marriage; fecundity; one-childfamily; trends; voluntary childlessness

Childlessness has recently emerged as a major factor contributing tolow birth rates and raising the prospect of population decline in more

developed countries. Between 10% and 20% of Western European womenborn in the 1950s will never have any children. Yet even they will not equalthe level of childlessness in cohorts born in the early decades of the 20thcentury. Childlessness is a concern not only because of its implications for

Journal of Family IssuesVolume 28 Number 10

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Author’s Note: I am very grateful to Pearl Dykstra (Netherlands Interdisciplinary DemographicInstitute), Marja Jylhä (University of Tampere), and Øystein Kravdal (University of Oslo) forcompiling data on childlessness in their respective countries. I would also like to thankGordon Carmichael (Australian National University), L. Toulemon (Institut National d’ÉtudesDémographiques), and M. Khawaja (Statistics, New Zealand) for references and statistical mate-rials. Final thanks go to Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox for her close reading of an earlier version of themanuscript. Please address correspondence to Dr. Don Rowland, School of Social Sciences,Haydon-Allen Building 22, The Australian National University, A.C.T. 0200, Australia; e-mail:[email protected].

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the maintenance of societies but also because of its consequences for indi-viduals, including circumstances in old age. People’s experiences of marriageand the family have a lasting influence on their life chances. Today, many ofthe aged in more developed countries have few close relatives, which bringsto the fore questions about their access to support (Coleman, 1996; Kreager,2004). In the 2020s, similar concerns about the adequacy of personalresources will confront the cohorts born in the 1950s and later, as childless-ness continues to shape their destiny.

This article provides a comparative and historical setting for the discus-sion of childlessness and its implications in later life. The aim is to compareand explain trends through time in the proportions childless in Europeancountries as well as in the United States, Australia, and Japan. The situationin less developed countries is addressed elsewhere (Poston & Baochang,1983; Spencer, 1983). The focus of the article is the experiences of birthcohorts, groups with the same years of birth, born between 1890 and 1954.They compose the older population of the late 20th and the early 21st cen-turies. Further information on other cohorts shows similarities and con-trasts with the past and future aged. Most of the article is about femalepopulations, referring mainly to the total of childless women, single orever married.

Conceptual Frameworks

Within the vast and growing scholarly literature on fertility in contempo-rary, highly industrialized societies, relatively few studies have specificallyaddressed the occurrence and prevalence of childlessness. Kreager’s (2004)historical review argued that childlessness has had a long history in Northernand Western Europe and in the United States (as well as in Australia), relatedto widespread postponement of marriage, especially in response to economicpressures. Historical evidence for the United States has also indicated theuse of contraception to delay childbearing within marriage, further contribut-ing to overall levels of childlessness (Morgan, 1991).

One of the few proposals for a theoretical framework linking trends andcauses of childlessness is the work of Poston and Trent (1982). They hypoth-esized a U-shaped pattern of change in the proportions childless as socioe-conomic development occurs. They believed this was due to a decrease ininvoluntary childlessness through time (in less developed countries) and anincrease in voluntary childlessness (in more developed countries). Thus theyhypothesized that voluntary and involuntary childlessness varied according

1312 Journal of Family Issues



to the level of development and that the lowest proportions childless occurredat some midpoint before voluntary childlessness gained influence.

Poston and Trent (1982) put forward the view that low fecundity iscaused by malnutrition, tuberculosis, malaria, and venereal diseases as wellas genetic and other factors. They argued that socioeconomic development,through reductions in disease and malnutrition, should reduce subfecundityand involuntary childlessness. Poston and Trent attributed the rise in vol-untary childlessness to structural factors associated with fertility decline,such as urbanization and increased educational and employment opportu-nities for women. Thus fertility and voluntary childlessness were thought tobe inversely related.

A problem with the Poston and Trent (1982) hypothesis is that it does notrefer to trends in marriage. Early and near-universal marriage in countries withlow levels of development has presumably fostered low levels of childlessness.Theoretical frameworks need to consider both trends in marriage (e.g., medianage at marriage and the proportions marrying) and trends in family formation(e.g., median age at the birth of the first child and average family size). Theputative transition from the predominance of involuntary childlessness to vol-untary childlessness also requires clarification, especially given the effects onthe proportions childless of never marrying or of delaying childbearing. Thisarticle explores these issues, first examining trends through time in the totalproportions childless, then focusing on explanations of trends, including mar-ried versus unmarried childlessness, and voluntary and involuntary causes.

Sources

Statistics on childlessness were drawn principally from (a) detailedfigures provided by other authors of this collection of articles, (b) academicjournal articles and monographs, and (c) census figures, including many pub-lished in the United Nations Demographic Yearbook. As the statistics and listof sources in Table 1 confirm, historical data on the childlessness of womenare incomplete, not everywhere comparable, and dispersed through a widerange of sources.

Statistics on the fertility and/or childlessness of men are much rarer(Greene & Biddlecom, 2000), and though found in some surveys and eventhe occasional census, there is no prospect for compiling a set of time-seriesdata for different countries (see Spencer, 1983). In older cohorts, childless-ness among married men does not differ appreciably from that of theirwives. The main divergence between the childlessness of men and women

Rowland / Trends in Childlessness 1313



1314

Tabl

e 1

Per

cent

ages

of A

ll W

omen

Chi

ldle

ss b

y A

ge 4

5,19

00-1

954

Bir

th C

ohor

ts

5-Y

ear

Coh

ort

1900

1905

1910

1915

1920

1925

1930

1935

1940

1945

1950

-190

4-1

909

-191

4-1

919

-192

4-1

929

-193

4-1

939

-194

4-1

949

-195

4

Aus

tria

16d

14d

15d

15d

17d

Bel

gium

16b

14b

13b

12b

16d

14d

13d

13d

14d

Bul

gari

a7b

6b5b

4b7e

7e7e

Cze

chos

lova

kia

(for

mer

)13

a12

a10

a8e

9e8e

Den

mar

k9e

11e

Eng

land

& W

ales

2117

1413

1210

14Fi

nlan

d26

2220

1816

1615

1414

15Fr

ance

2523

2120

1916

1311

1111

12G

erm

any

(for

mer

2620

1717

1811

109

87

Dem

ocra

tic R

epub

lic)

Ger

man

y (f

orm

er26

2219

1817

1010

1214

18Fe

dera

l Rep

ublic

)H

unga

ry20

2020

1916

1411

99e

9e9e

Icel

and

12a

Irel

and

19d

15d

13d

Ital

y18

1917

1516

1513

1014

e12

e12

e

Net

herl

ands

2322

2016

1514

1212

1211

15N

orw

ay12

a10

a10

a9d

9d9d

11d

Pola

nd12

b11

b10

b9b

7b

Port

ugal

2121

2019

1717

1411

e10

e

Rom

ania

2120

1916

13Sp

ain

14b

14b

14b

13b

14b

12e

11e

10e

Swed

en14

1313

1315



1315

Switz

erla

nd22

a20

a16

d16

d18

d

Yug

osla

via

(for

mer

)17

c15

c16

c15

c15

c13

c12

c9e

9e8e

Aus

tral

ia31

2721

1915

119

99

10f

13g

Can

ada

14b

12b

10b

8b7b

Isra

el9b

7b5b

4b3b

Japa

n9b

9b8b

8b8b

New

Zea

land

14b

14b

1815

1311

99

910

12f

Uni

ted

Stat

es24

2425

2217

1413

109

1117

Sour

ce:A

ustr

alia

:Row

land

(199

8b);

Eng

land

and

Wal

es:H

er M

ajes

ty’s

Sta

tione

ry O

ffic

e (H

MSO

) (19

91);

Fin

land

:com

pile

d by

Mar

ja J

ylhä

(Uni

vers

ityof

Tam

pere

); F

ranc

e:To

ulem

on (

1996

,p. 8

; and

per

sona

l com

mun

icat

ion,

n.d.

). A

noth

er s

ourc

e (P

riou

x,19

93,p

. 233

) gi

ves

rela

tivel

y lo

w p

ropo

rtio

nsch

ildle

ss in

Fra

nce,

nam

ely,

8.4%

(19

40-1

944

coho

rt),

8.5%

(19

45-1

949

coho

rt),

8.1%

(19

50-1

954

coho

rt),

and

8.7%

(19

55-1

959

coho

rt).

The

sta

tistic

sfo

r Fra

nce

in C

olem

an (1

996)

cam

e or

igin

ally

from

Ral

lu (1

994)

,usi

ng 1

982

data

; Ger

man

y (f

orm

er D

emoc

ratic

Rep

ublic

and

form

er F

eder

al R

epub

lic):

Dor

britz

and

Sch

war

z (1

996,

p. 2

38)

and

Dor

britz

(pe

rson

al c

omm

unic

atio

n,n.

d.);

Ita

ly:1

900-

1939

coh

orts

fro

m S

antin

i (19

74,p

. 198

); N

ethe

rlan

ds:

com

pile

d by

Pea

rl D

ykst

ra (

Net

herl

ands

Int

erdi

scip

linar

y D

emog

raph

ic I

nstit

ute;

per

sona

l com

mun

icat

ion,

n.d.

); N

orw

ay:1

905-

1929

coh

orts

com

pile

dby

Øys

tein

Kra

vdal

(Uni

vers

ity o

f Osl

o) b

ased

on

a 19

88 S

tatis

tics

Nor

way

repo

rt; S

wed

en:a

vera

ges

for s

ingl

e-ye

ar c

ohor

ts fr

om P

riou

x (1

993,

p. 2

35);

Uni

ted

Stat

es:f

igur

es fo

r tot

al W

hite

wom

en fr

om M

orga

n (1

991,

pp. 7

82-7

83),

incl

udin

g es

timat

es fr

om 1

940.

Has

tings

and

Rob

inso

n (1

974)

pro

vide

dsi

mila

r es

timat

es f

or a

ll U

.S. w

omen

,inc

ludi

ng d

ata

for

the

ever

-mar

ried

and

tota

l wom

en. D

ata

for

othe

r co

untr

ies

and/

or c

ohor

ts f

rom

Fri

nkin

g (1

988,

p. 2

28),

Prio

ux (

1993

,pp

. 23

4-23

5),

Col

eman

(19

96,

p. 3

3),

the

Uni

ted

Nat

ions

Dem

ogra

phic

Year

book

(var

ious

yea

rs),

and

the

1996

New

Zea

land

Cen

sus.

Whe

re f

igur

es d

iffe

red

betw

een

sour

ces,

norm

ally

the

mor

e re

cent

one

s w

ere

used

.N

ote:

The

dat

a re

fer

to w

omen

age

45

to 4

9 or

old

er a

t th

e tim

e of

the

cen

sus

or s

urve

y,un

less

oth

erw

ise

indi

cate

d. Y

ears

of

birt

h va

ry b

etw

een

sour

ces;

figu

res

are

loca

ted

unde

r the

nea

rest

bir

th y

ears

(e.g

.,19

01-1

905

is u

nder

190

0-19

04).

Som

e fi

gure

s fr

om th

e D

emog

raph

ic Y

earb

ook

incl

ude

still

birt

hs. P

erce

ntag

es c

alcu

late

d fr

om th

e D

emog

raph

ic Y

earb

ook

for s

ome

coun

trie

s us

ed d

enom

inat

ors

that

incl

uded

wom

en w

ho d

id n

ot s

tate

thei

ris

sue

beca

use

it is

like

ly th

at m

any

wom

en in

this

cat

egor

y ha

d no

chi

ldre

n (1

986

Year

book

); u

nder

estim

atio

n of

chi

ldle

ssne

ss h

as r

esul

ted.

a. C

urre

ntly

mar

ried

wom

en,b

irth

s fr

om th

e ex

istin

g m

arri

age.

b. E

ver-

mar

ried

wom

en.

c. L

ivin

g ch

ildre

n.d.

Ave

rage

s fr

om s

ingl

e-ye

ar f

igur

es f

or c

ohor

ts a

t age

40

in C

olem

an (

1996

,p. 3

3).

e. A

vera

ges

from

sin

gle-

year

fig

ures

in P

riou

x (1

993,

p. 2

35).

f. W

omen

age

40

to 4

4.g.

Wom

en a

ge 3

5 to

39.



arises from differences in the proportions marrying. In France, for example,lower proportions of men have married particularly because of their greaterlikelihood of experiencing migration. Historical data for France also indicatethat men still single at age 50 were far less likely than single women to havehad any offspring (Toulemon, 1996).

The main problem with the statistics in Table 1 is that some refer to cur-rently married or ever-married women, rather than all women. Because theprimary interest in these analyses was in the total proportions childless,some additional estimates were made—for the Netherlands and Australia—to provide more complete figures. In these two countries it was assumed,based on detailed information for some cohorts, that 5% of never-marriedwomen had borne children. By comparison, in France about 14% of never-married women born in 1920 were mothers, as were about 17% born in 1930(Toulemon, 1996). In the past, however, unmarried mothers were at risk ofbecoming functionally childless by surrendering their babies for adoption.

The statistics for Australia also include allowance for the death of anonly child before age 5. Child mortality is commonly only a very smallcomponent of childlessness because high infant death rates typically occurin conjunction with high fertility. Differences between the numbers ofchildren born and the numbers still living are therefore most pronouncedwhere average family size is large (Spencer, 1983). Estimates for Australiashow that between 1% and 0.2% of total women in cohorts born since 1851were childless on account of the early death of a child (Rowland, 1998b).

Mortality of children at later ages can further affect the prevalence ofchildlessness, but normally only slightly. In the past, large family size wasan insurance against having no surviving offspring in later life. Indeed,throughout the course of the demographic transition from high to low birthand death rates, the average number of offspring surviving in a parent’s oldage may change relatively little (Rowland, 1984). This is because large familysize offsets the effects of high mortality, whereas low death rates ensurethat most parents of small families still have sons and daughters survivingin their later years. For example, in contemporary America, less than 0.5%of mothers of two children (one son, one daughter) are childless at age 80(Uhlenberg, 1996). Exceptional circumstances, especially related to the twoworld wars, however, have been responsible for relatively high levels ofchildlessness in some regions, such as West Berlin, Germany (Wagner, 1997).Mortality of children at later ages is also more likely to lead to childlessnessif a mother has only one offspring, and more particularly if it is a son—because of excess male mortality. Nevertheless, the contribution to overallchildlessness of outliving an only child should generally be small, given therelatively low representation of the one-child family in past generations.




Since the 1960s, few European countries have had a question in theircensuses on numbers of children; thus, much of the information for Europederives from surveys and national birth registers. In contrast, the censusesof the United States and Australia are rich sources of historical data onfamily size and childlessness, despite some uncertainty about the accuracyof the figures (Grabill & Glick, 1959). In the United States, statistics for thesame cohorts vary a little from one census to the next, and the censusfigures on the proportion of all women childless are higher than those fromother sources (Mattessich, 1979; Morgan, 1991). The apparent overestima-tion is due to an underreporting of births, especially to never-marriedwomen, although other features of the data offset much of this (Morgan,1991). All of the figures exclude the effects of adoptions, stepchildren, andfunctional childlessness, and some exclude births from previous marriages.Although the estimates vary somewhat between different sources, the majortrends are clear.

The graphs and the table present information on 5-year birth cohorts. Insome countries the data refer to years ending in 1 or 6, or to years measuredfrom July 1; however, for simplicity these are grouped under the closestinterval for years ending in 0 and 5. Adding 30 years to dates of birth givesthe approximate time when cohorts were in the midst of family formationbecause the average age at childbearing has been fairly constant at aroundage 29 (Pressat, 1985).

Trends in Total Proportions Childless

Trends through time in statistics for developed countries reveal three mainfeatures: (a) a rise in the proportions childless among women born aroundthe middle of the 19th century, (b) a pronounced decline in the proportionschildless for cohorts born between 1900 and 1940, and (c) an increase inchildlessness among more recent birth cohorts (Figure 1, Table 1). The firstof these generalizations is the most tentative because data are available foronly two countries. The overall decline from birth cohorts 1900 to 1940 ismarked despite some exceptions and variations. Evidently, the contempo-rary aged (persons age 65 and older) are products of a time spanning thehighest and lowest prevalence of childlessness.

Toward the Peak

Only for the United States and Australia are there data for much of the19th century. These figures suggest that in the past it was common for high




proportions of women to remain childless. Figures of between 15% and25% were typical for cohorts born in the 19th century. In the United States,there was an appreciable increase between the 1840 and 1875 cohorts in theproportions childless and again among cohorts born in the early 20th century.Marital childlessness was the main factor in the overall trend. The peak figuresfor cohorts born in the 1890s and early 1900s especially reflect the effects onfamily formation of the Great Depression (Morgan, 1991).


Figure 1Proportions Childless in Selected Countries, Female Birth

Cohorts at Ages 45 to 49 or Older

Source: See Table 1. Germany (former Federal Republic) 1900-1924 compiled by MichaelWagner (University of Cologne), 1935-1954 from Coleman (1996, p.33).

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1840

-184

4

1850

-185

4

1860

-186

4

1870

-187

4

1880

-188

4

1890

-189

4

1900

-190

4

1910

-191

4

1920

-192

4

1930

-193

4

1940

-194

4

1950

-195

4

Year of Birth

% T

ota

l Co

ho

rt

England & Wales

France

Finland

Germany [Federal Republic]

Netherlands

Australia

United States



Remaining single was more prevalent in 19th-century Australia than in theUnited States (Morgan, 1991; Rowland, 1998b), as reflected in Australia’s rel-atively high level of childlessness. More than half of all childlessness inAustralian female cohorts born before the 1890s was due to never marrying.The spatial distribution of population is one factor thought to have restrictedopportunities for marriage in 19th-century Australia because unmarriedwomen outnumbered unmarried men in the cities, whereas the opposite wastrue in the countryside (McDonald, 1975). In later cohorts, marital childless-ness became predominant. Postponement of childbearing within marriageduring the Great Depression was an important factor in the high prevalenceof childlessness in Australia. The First and Second World Wars added tofamily disruption in cohorts born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—their proportions childless may have peaked at over 30% (Figure 1), althoughthe height of the peak also suggests that there may be data quality issues forthese cohorts. Little is known about the effects of the First World War onfamily formation in Australia; however, it is thought that the Great Depressionhad more impact on childbearing than on the proportions marrying. Duringthe 1930s Depression, couples postponed childbearing, more remained child-less, and average completed family size fell (Borrie, 1994). The timing of theSecond World War meant that many couples never realized their plans forchildbearing (Borrie, 1994). Thus, childlessness resulting from involuntarycircumstances, particularly the effects of national and international events,appears to have been important.

Decline

The cohorts born early in the 20th century mark a turning point towarddeclining proportions childless. Available data for France, Finland, Germany,the Netherlands, and the United States indicate that approximately one fifthto one fourth of women in the 1900 birth cohort remained childless. In sev-eral countries the ensuing decline brought the prevalence of childless downto around 10%. The lower limit for virtually all countries in Figure 1 andTable 1 occurred in cohorts born in the 1940s. Their prime childbearingyears mostly preceded the emergence, in the 1980s, of the “second demo-graphic transition”—the hypothesized dramatic shift in norms that movedWestern societies away from marriage and parenthood (van de Kaa, 1987;Lesthaeghe, 1998).

Finland stands out in Figure 1 as having experienced a more modestdecline than other countries. The lowest points in the graph are for the UnitedStates and Australia (Figure 1), both of which experienced longer sustained




baby booms after the Second World War than did European countries. Thus,the minimum proportions childless were observed among the cohorts thatbecame the parents of the baby boom in the first 15 to 20 years after theSecond World War. Australia had the most prolonged period of low child-lessness, associated with its post-1945 increases in the proportions marry-ing and having children, together with its sustained immigration boom.

Less complete information for a range of other countries points to a wide-spread decline in childlessness and its more recent revival. In a majority ofthe countries listed in Table 1, the proportions childless in the early 1900scohorts were more than 20%, compared with 10% to 14% in their 1940s cohorts.New Zealand, Poland, and Spain had the lowest figures in their 1900s cohorts;however, the decline still ensued in each country except Spain. Evidently,there was a wide occurrence of declining childlessness in cohorts of womenborn in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s: often the proportions fell by between onethird and one half. This pattern was repeated among cohorts of women livingin Israel after 1948 and, although the figures for Israel in Table 1 refer to ever-married rather than all women, the proportion childless in the 1930-1934 cohort(3%) is unusually low, perhaps because of early ages at marriage.

Trends through time in Japan indicate a plateau, with the proportions child-less running at just under 10%, in contrast with trends in the other countries.This figure is consistent with near-universal marriage, although not earlyuniversal marriage. In preindustrial Japan, for example, it was exceptionalfor women to remain unmarried because there were no other roles for them,and economic barriers to marriage were minimal (Cornell, 1984). Other sta-tistics for metropolitan Tokyo show a marked increase in childlessness in thecohorts born in the late 1910s and early 1920s: 14% of the women age 65 to69 in 1995 were childless, compared with 13% at age 70 to 74 and 10% atage 75 to 79 (W. Koyano, Seigakuin University, personal communication,n.d.). This implies an early rise in childlessness in Japan’s largest urbancenter, perhaps partly because many women, born around the early 1920s,were widowed early as a result of the Second World War.

Revival

A return to higher levels of childlessness is occurring among cohorts bornafter 1945 in most countries included in Figure 1 and Table 1. The trend isassociated with lower proportions marrying and below-replacement fertility.Although France, Hungary, and Italy appear to be exceptions, they are merelyexperiencing a slightly delayed revival of childlessness (van de Kaa, 1997;Toulemon, 1996). Sharp increases in childlessness are evident in the United




States, England and Wales, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, the formerDemocratic Republic of Germany, and Sweden.

Figures for the younger cohorts are necessarily estimates; however, thereis broad agreement among social researchers that the revival is a major trend.Frinking (1988) estimated childlessness for the 1950 cohort of women inseveral European countries as ranging between 11% and 16%, which is sim-ilar to the 1950-1954 estimates in Table 1. Looking further ahead, the pro-portions estimated to remain childless range from 13% (Spain and Sweden)to above 20% (West Germany, and England and Wales) for European womenborn in the early 1960s (Sobotka, 2004). Bloom and Pebley’s (1982) earlierprojections of the proportions childless in the 1950 birth cohort gave figuresas high as 34% for Austria, 21% for England and Wales, and 20% for theUnited States. In the United States, however, increases in first births afterage 30 have reduced the actual proportions permanently childless to about16% (Martin et al., 2005).

For cohorts born in the 1960s and later, the distinction between marriedand unmarried childlessness is less clear because of increases in births occur-ring outside formal marriages and because consensual unions are more widelyaccepted in many societies (Kiernan, 1999). Some authors perceive a globaltransformation of the matrimonial system in which relationships are merelythe expression of individual choice, with less societal regulation or concern.They see the rise in cohabitation as a major determinant of temporary andpermanent childlessness because such couples are seeking greater personalfreedom and are more motivated to remain childless (Frinking, 1988). InDenmark and Sweden, however, premarital cohabitation has had little effecton marital fertility (Kiernan, 1999). Accordingly, the long-run implicationsof cohabitation for childlessness are still far from clear.

The decline in childlessness, and the associated marriage revolution andbaby boom, were to some extent exceptional in that they created unsustain-able expectations of universal marriage and childbearing. Social scientists,however, are still debating the relative importance of voluntary and invol-untary factors in more recent changes (Bulcroft & Teachman, 2004). Somescholars have emphasized individualism and freedom of choice (Carmichael,1995; Lesthaeghe, 1998; Poston & Kramer, 1983). For example, Poston andGotard (1977) attributed the rise in childlessness in the United States sincethe mid-1960s mainly to voluntary factors “linked to broader changes in thefabric of society regarding fertility control, contraceptive technology, femalework preferences and patterns, and sexual and family norms” (p. 212). Theysaw as a key trend the equalization between the sexes of opportunities fornonfamilial roles.




Other commentators have emphasized the unexpected long-run conse-quences of delaying family formation, potentially related concerns aboutinvoluntary infertility (including age-related declines in fecundity), and theeffects of competing opportunities (particularly for women), noting that theseprocesses are not fully voluntary nor involuntary reasons for childlessness(Bongaarts, 2001; Quesnel-Vallée & Morgan, 2003). Among younger cohortsin France, childlessness is increasing as family formation is delayed (Toulemon,1996). Such delays can bring stronger commitments to childless lifestylesand work-related pursuits as well as difficulties in achieving a viable preg-nancy. Based on data for the 1965 marriage cohort in Germany, Schwarz(1986) calculated that “almost all couples who have remained childless forabout 10 years will remain childless for ever” (p. 244).

Subnational Variations

Just as birth rates have varied between geographical settings and socialgroups, so too have the proportions childless. According to the 1971 GermanMicrocensus, the proportions childless in West Berlin exceeded 40% amongcohorts of women born between 1885 and 1904. This was due to the effectsof wars, the Depression, and the departure of families from Berlin (Wagner,1997). Evidently, regional variations were marked because total figures forthe former Federal Republic of Germany were in the range of 26% to 28%for the same cohorts (Figure 1). Other German examples of geographicalvariations show that the proportion of married couples without children wasabout 8% to 12% in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the figure waslower in small communities (< 2,000), where early contraception and abor-tion of the first child were rare, and higher in larger communities (> 100,000)(Schwarz, 1986).

There were also striking variations by age at marriage. Among Germanwives who married at age 30 or older, the proportion childless was about 4times higher than among those who married in their early 20s (Schwarz,1986). Variations in age at marriage are believed to account for many of thedifferences in levels of childlessness through time and between socialgroups in Germany (Schwarz, 1986). Other European and American stud-ies have reported similar findings (Beets, 1996). Late marriage decreasesthe time during which pregnancy can occur, brings better of knowledge ofcontraception, and strengthens the likelihood of a commitment to a child-less lifestyle (de Jong & Sell, 1977). Cross-national data show that amongwomen marrying in their early 30s, at least 10% remained childless, andoften the figure was greater than 20% (Spencer, 1983).




Delayed marriage and educational attainment are commonly linked. The1950 Census of the United States population showed larger proportionschildless among White women with higher levels of education (Grabill &Glick, 1959). Education was seen as reinforcing roles and value systemsthat represented alternatives to motherhood (de Jong & Sell, 1977). Blackwomen with high educational attainments were also more likely to be child-less (de Jong & Sell, 1977). Nevertheless, historically in the United States,the proportions childless in the Black population were higher overall thanin the White population (Poston & Gotard, 1977). Disease-related sterilityhas been considered “a major determinant of the greater incidence of child-lessness among black when compared to white couples” (de Jong & Sell,1977, p. 133; see also McFalls & McFalls, 1984; Poston, 1974). Other arti-cles in this two-part special issue take up questions of the extent of differencesbetween groups in society together with their implications for circumstancesin later life. Key questions include the following: Are career-oriented, well-educated, and affluent women more likely to be childless? To what extent dothe childless represent socioeconomically advantaged versus disadvantagedgroups within societies?

Survival of the Childless

A final issue needing mention in this discussion of “trends” concerns therelationships between estimates of childlessness based on historical data andprevalence of childlessness among contemporary aged cohorts. Studiescommonly measure a cohort’s childlessness at age 45 to 49, the end ofwomen’s normal reproductive span. In historical data for the United States, theproportions childless at age 40 to 44 for all women differ little from thosefor age 45 to 49 (Hastings & Robinson, 1974). Potential causes of changefrom age 50 include the effects of international migration (of older people orof their children; see Kreager, 2004) and differences in death rates betweenwomen with and without children (see Kendig, Dykstra, van Gaalen, &Melkas, 2007), and marital status. Statistics for Australia, for example, indi-cate a small decline in the proportions of married women who are childlessas they reach their 60s and 70s. International migration of the aged toAustralia has typically entailed family reunion of parents with sons anddaughters already in the country and would therefore tend to reduce the pro-portions childless among the married, as well as the widowed.

Mechanisms including the protective and selective effects of marriagewould tend to decrease the proportions childless as cohorts grow older becausethe unmarried have poorer survival. For example, in the United States, marriage




is thought to contribute to healthier lifestyles, better monitoring of health,greater social support, and a stronger sense of meaning in people’s lives(Waite, 1995). Furthermore, marriage appears to reduce health risk behaviorssuch as smoking and excessive drinking, and to increase material well-beingthrough greater income, better nutrition, and a safer living environment(Waite, 1995). Australian data show that death rates for all unmarried oldermen and women (including the widowed and divorced) are about 40%higher than for the married (Mathers, 1994). German data show that the pro-tection mechanisms of a marriage accumulate and are maintained over along period of time (Brockmann & Klein, 2004).

Given the relatively low numbers of deaths of women in their 50s and60s, the total proportions childless probably do not vary substantially over-all as cohorts advance from their 40s into later life. Thus, although thefigures for the prevalence of and trends in childlessness mainly refer to lev-els of childlessness at age 45 to 49, the proportions should be similar at age65 to 69.

Explanations

Turning now from the trends per se to the explanation of them, thissection examines findings about the causes of change, beginning with therelative contribution of the never married and the ever married to overalldevelopments. Later sections focus on interrelationships between differentaspects of change in the family and the role of voluntary and involuntaryfactors.

Marital and Nonmarital Components

Changes in the family through time are the key points of reference inexplaining the decline in childlessness in more developed countries from ahigh of 20% to 25% to a low of about 10%. Figures above 25% seem to havebeen due to a greater impact on family formation of calamitous events.

Statistics for the United States, France, the Netherlands, and Australiaillustrate the effects of marriage trends on childlessness among cohorts bornbetween the early 1900s and the 1930s (Figure 2). A major developmenthas been “the marriage revolution”—a trend toward earlier and more uni-versal marriage in Western societies. In the late 19th century, the “Europeanmarriage pattern” (Hajnal, 1965, 1983) was characteristic in northwesternEurope, as well as in Australia (McDonald, 1982). This entailed late ages




at marriage and high proportions never marrying, predominantly because ofeconomic constraints. The expense of marriage and child rearing, however,were not the sole reasons for never marrying. For instance, in 19th-centuryIreland celibacy became more prevalent, even though incomes grew. Inadversity, individuals could rely on “substitutes for marriage and children”including ownership of land and relationships with other kin and alternativeheirs (Guinnane, 1991; see also Kreager, 2004).


Figure 2Marital and Nonmarital Components of the Total Proportions

Childless in the United States, Australia, France, and theNetherlands (Female Birth Cohorts 1900-1904 to 1930-1934)

Source: See Table 1.

United States(White Women)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1900

1905

1910

1915

1920

1925

1930

Year of Birth

% T

otal

Birt

h C

ohor

t Married

Never married

Australia

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1900

1905

1910

1915

1920

1925

1930

Year of Birth

% T

otal

Birt

h C

ohor

t

% T

otal

Birt

h C

ohor

tMarried

Never married

France

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1900

1905

1910

1915

1920

1925

1930

Year of Birth

% T

otal

Birt

h C

ohor

t Married

Never married

Netherlands

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1900

1905

1910

1915

1920

1925

1930

Year of Birth

Married

Never married



The 20th-century “marriage revolution” reversed the European marriagepattern. Contemporary older cohorts lived their younger years during decadeswhen higher proportions of people were marrying. For example, in France,11% of women born in 1900 had never been married by their 50th birthday,compared with 7% of women born in 1940 (Toulemon, 1996). A similarfall, to somewhat lower minimum figures, occurred in the United States(Haines, 1996), the Netherlands (van Poppel, 1992), and Australia (Rowland,1994). The pace and extent of the marriage revolution, however, variedbetween countries in Europe (McDonald, 1975), and in the first half of the20th century the two world wars and the Great Depression further affectedtrends in family formation.

The peak in childlessness within cohorts born around the turn of thecentury appears to have been due substantially to childlessness within mar-riage because events had more impact on childbearing than on marriage.Some women, widowed at a young age as a result of the First or SecondWorld Wars, may never have remarried and borne children. Also, because ofeconomic depression and war, married couples who postponed having childrenuntil better times risked remaining permanently childless if they delayed toolong. Marriage breakdown, sometimes arising from wartime experiences oreconomic adversity, would have added to the numbers remaining childless,although actual divorce rates remained relatively low during the main repro-ductive years of contemporary older cohorts. Wars also rendered some child-less through civilian and military casualties. The effects of war are strikinglyevident in the relatively large contribution of bereavements to the overallchildlessness of the oldest cohorts in West Berlin in the early 1990s (Wagner,1997). The passing of the effects of war and economic depression laterfacilitated a decline in childlessness among the ever-married to relativelylow figures for cohorts born in the 1930s, who became the parents of thebaby boom generation. See Hagestad and Call (2007 [this issue]) for ananalysis of pathways into childlessness for Dutch and American cohortsborn in the first decades of the 20th century.

Differences in the impact of events and social changes on national popu-lations have resulted in contrasts in the marital composition of the childlessthrough time in different settings, despite a common trend toward decliningproportions childless overall. The former importance of married childless-ness is striking in the United States, France, and Australia, whereas the effectsof the marriage revolution in reducing the proportions never married areespecially apparent in the Netherlands and Australia (Figure 2). The decreasein married childlessness in France has been attributed to improvements inhealth care, living standards, and working conditions, which reinforced the




“right to have children” and possibly also extinguished for a time the “rightnot to have children” (Toulemon, 1996).

Fertility Control

The revival of childlessness in the 1950s cohorts is linked with the avail-ability of more efficient methods of family limitation, especially the contra-ceptive pill and wider recourse to safe methods of sterilization and abortion.The historical peak in childlessness, in contrast, was associated with no suchinnovations. Santow (1995) considered that coitus interruptus was “instru-mental” in the fertility transitions in Western countries and that it was incommon use in all European countries in the early decades of the 20thcentury. Sexual abstinence and abortion were also important and low coitalfrequency may have been as well (Santow, 1995; Szreter, 1996). Althoughstatistics on methods of family planning in use among contemporary youngercohorts are available from a number of sources (e.g., Coleman, 1996; UnitedNations, 1996), less is known about how contemporary older cohorts limitedtheir childbearing earlier in life (Santow, 1995). Exceptions are some stud-ies of fertility control in Britain, Australia, and the United States.

Szreter (1996) argued that “attempted abstinence” was the main methodof fertility control in Britain before and after the First World War. He notedthat despite the importance of “attempted abstinence, embracing coitus inter-ruptus” in Britain, there was considerable variation in “the cultures of con-traception” in different localities and among different social groups (Szreter,1996). Nevertheless, he concluded that these varied developments took placewithin the general context of “a culture of abstinence, which meant that thereduced coital frequency resulting from attempted abstinence was the prin-cipal common denominator among all these mixes of practices” (p. 416).This arose in the late Victorian era and after from “quite strongly negative orat best guilty and ambivalent feelings towards sex” together with “the well-known hazards to the health and even the life of the woman if pregnancyensued” (Szreter, 1996, p. 439). It seems unlikely that childlessness itselfoften resulted from a “culture of abstinence” because the main effect of lowerfrequencies of intercourse is to increase the spacing of pregnancies (Morgan,1991; Szreter, 1996).

British, as well as American, ideas influenced the practice of fertility con-trol in Australia (Caldwell, 1982); however, differences are evident. Until the1930s, around one third of Australian couples controlling their fertility usedcoitus interruptus as the main method; the remainder principally used termi-nal abstinence or infrequent coitus, condoms, spermicides, douching, and




abortion (Caldwell, 1982). From the 1880s to the 1940s, the proportion offecund couples voluntarily controlling their fertility by such means increasedfrom 12% to 72% (Caldwell, 1982). They participated in a contraceptive rev-olution, not an abortion one. The quite limited prevalence among all fecundcouples of terminal abstinence and very low coital frequencies seem hardlyin keeping with the notion of “attempted abstinence” in Victorian Australia(Caldwell, 1982). The main contrary evidence is late age at marriage thatitself implies lower fertility and a higher prevalence of “primary” sterility,that is, without any offspring.

In the United States, the main means of fertility control in the late 19thcentury were the diaphragm, the condom, infrequent coitus, coitus interrup-tus, abstinence, and abortion (Morgan, 1991). A desire to limit family size,in conjunction with the failure of contraceptive techniques, is claimed to haveled to “common” recourse to abortion after 1830 in the United States (Degler,1980), although less so late in the century on account of legal restrictions(Degler, 1980; Morgan, 1991). Because of moral reservations and healthrisks, abortion was probably not a major factor in the fertility transition inWestern countries (see Caldwell, 1982; Szreter, 1996). Nevertheless, it waspotentially a cause of childlessness through the pelvic infections and infer-tility that could follow (Morgan, 1991). Other aspects of women’s health,including nutrition, antenatal care, and exposure to diseases, including sex-ually transmitted diseases and genital forms of tuberculosis, are further fac-tors in the prevalence of childlessness (McFalls & McFalls, 1984).

Fecundity

In the 1950s, Grabill and Glick (1959) reported “that about 10% of mar-ried couples of childbearing age have seriously impaired fecundity” (p. 61).These couples are biologically unable to have children, though they wish tohave them and attempt to have them. A more recent estimate is that 3% ofcouples suffer from biological infecundity from the beginning of their mar-riage (Werner, 1986). According to Coleman (1996), biological infecundityvaries little across populations in developed countries.

Age-related changes in fecundity can have a strong effect on the likeli-hood of childlessness, especially in conjunction with delayed marriage andlow coital rates (Menken, 1985). Toulemon (1996) summarized the relation-ship between age and fecundity as follows: “in the absence of therapy, 20%of women who start trying for a baby when they are aged 35 do not succeed,compared to 12% at age 30, 8% at 25 and 4% at 20” (p. 24). The age-related




fertility decline consists of two components: a declining probability of conceivingand a rising risk of spontaneous abortion (te Velde & Pearson, 2002).

One of the lowest known proportions childless in a total of the marriedand unmarried is 6.1% for women age 50 to 74 years in Utah in 1910, mostof whom were Mormons (Grabill & Glick, 1959). For ever-married Utahwomen, the figure was 4.5%; however, even this was higher than a figure ofless than 3% for ever-married Hutterite women (Whelpton, Campbell, &Patterson, 1966). A similar percentage for ever-married women in Israel wasnoted earlier (Table 1). The lowest figures presumably occur where a pop-ulation is in good health, has high proportions married in their early 20s,and does not use family planning or abortion to delay the first birth.

Interrelations Between Family Changes

To illustrate relationships between different factors influencing childless-ness, Figure 3 compares trends in childlessness of married women withtrends in other aspects of marriage and family formation in Australia. Thereis clearly a parallel in Figure 3a between changes in the proportions of mar-ried women who are childless and the median age at marriage. Later ages atmarriage bring a greater likelihood of low fecundity and, for some, a strength-ened reluctance to have children. For 19th-century cohorts, the notion of“the economically proper time to marry” was a major factor in delayed mar-riages. Today, the notion of “the psychologically proper time to marry”(McDonald, 1982) has equivalent effects on age at marriage and probabilitiesof childlessness.

It seems reasonable to expect a similar association between the propor-tion of married women who are childless and the proportion with only onechild. The one-child family has never been a popular family size and denotesuncompleted, or unusually limited, family-building goals. Its popularityappears to be increasing in Europe (Goldstein, Lutz, & Testa, 2003). Incohorts born during the 20th century, the one-child family has varied intandem with the proportions childless (Figure 3b). Thus, the highest pro-portions of married women with one child occur in the same birth cohortsthat had the peak proportions childless. The later fall in the proportionswith only one child matched the fall in the proportions of married womenremaining childless. A similar pattern has been observed in the UnitedStates (McLaughlin et al., 1988). It is notable also that the current increasein childlessness corresponds with survey information for a number ofEuropean countries showing a spectacular rise, between 1979 and 1989, in





Figure 3Proportions of Married Women Who Are Childless and Associated

Family Changes, Female Birth Cohorts, Australia

Source: Rowland (1998b); data on median age at first marriage by courtesy Gordon Carmichael,Australian National University (personal communication, n.d.).

Median Age at First Marriage & Percentage Childless

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.018

51-1

856

1861

-186

6

1871

-187

6

1881

-188

6

1891

-189

6

1901

-190

6

1911

-191

6

1921

-192

6

1931

-193

6

1851

-185

6

1861

-186

6

1871

-187

6

1881

-188

6

1891

-189

6

1901

-190

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-191

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-192

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-193

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-185

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-186

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-191

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-192

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1931

-193

6

% M

arri

ed W

om

en C

hild

less

20.0

20.5

21.0

21.5

22.0

22.5

23.0

23.5

24.0

Med

ian

Ag

e at

Fir

st M

arri

age

Childless

Median age at first marriage

BirthCohort

Percentage Married Women with One Child & Percentage Childless

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

% M

arri

ed W

om

en C

hild

less Childless

One child

BirthCohort

Family Size of Married Women & Percentage Childless

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

% M

arri

ed W

om

en C

hild

less

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

Ave

rag

e N

um

ber

of

Ch

ildre

n

Childless

Family size

BirthCohort

a

b

c



the proportion of young women who specified their preferred family size asone child (Coleman, 1996).

In the cohorts born before the 1890s, however, there was little associationbetween the two. In these cohorts the proportion of married, childless womenwas more or less constant at a level in keeping with the level that might beexpected in a population in which late marriage and health problems couldhave substantial outcomes in terms of low fecundity and sterility. Neverthe-less, the proportions with only one child rose continuously (as did the pro-portions with two or three children) perhaps because the one-child familywas an initial response to straitened circumstances, whereas heightened pro-portions childless reflected greater adversity. The childbearing years ofwomen born between the 1850s and the mid-1870s would have been affectedby the 1890s economic depression, which hastened the newly begun declinein average family size in Australia.

In other countries, some authors have found that childlessness within mar-riage was greatest in the times and places where fertility control was mostevident (Morgan, 1991; Poston & Trent, 1982; Spencer, 1983). In the UnitedStates, higher levels of childlessness matched up in time, space, and socialgroupings with lower rates of having a third or later birth (Morgan, 1991).Thus, childlessness may be most conspicuous where the average family sizeof women is smaller (Morgan, 1991). For Australia, Figure 3c gives moder-ate support to the hypothesis that higher levels of married childlessness areassociated with smaller families. Among 20th-century birth cohorts, thosewith the lowest average family size had the highest proportions childless,whereas those with the largest families had the lowest proportions childless.Yet in the same cohorts, average family size has varied within a narrowrange—from 2.4 to 3 children per married woman. This reflects the earlierfertility transition in Australia—largely among women born in the 19thcentury. The graph indicates that the proportions childless varied relativelylittle among the 19th-century birth cohorts responsible for the fertility tran-sition from more than 6 to fewer than 3 children per family. The figures arefairly consistent with the expected minimum for that time of around 10%childless among married women. Overall, the cohorts with the greatest rangein family size showed only small variations in the proportions childless,whereas those with the greatest range in the proportions childless had onlysmall variations in average family size. This suggests that explanations oflinkages between family size and childlessness could usefully distinguishbetween the experiences of cohorts responsible for the fertility transitionand the cohorts of the posttransition period.




In summary, Figure 3 suggests an association, in 20th-century cohorts,between childlessness and delayed family formation (later marriage), curtailedfamily formation (the one-child family), and average family size. These find-ings imply that a framework for the investigation of childlessness throughtime should consider trends in the proportions marrying and, within the mar-ried population, the extent of delays and curtailments in childbearing.

Voluntary and Involuntary Childlessness

As noted earlier, some writers assume that in the past most childlessnesswas involuntary, whereas contemporary childlessness is mainly voluntary.More realistically, there must have always been a mixture of voluntary andinvoluntary factors. It cannot be assumed that in the past, marriage andfamily formation were universally desired or that in the present all are ableto achieve their particular marital and reproductive goals (see Voas, 2003).Nor is there an absolute distinction between voluntary and involuntary out-comes because individual circumstances constrain most choices (Bulcroft &Teachman, 2004; Mosher & Bachrach, 1982). There is also much ambiva-lence about childlessness because of the persistence of pronatalist ideals andbecause childlessness is commonly a situation consolidated only graduallyas youth gives way to middle age. This is evident in that various authorshave interpreted voluntary childlessness as due more commonly to delay-ing childbearing than to a single decision not to have children (Kemkes-Grottenthaler, 2003; Morgan, 1991; Poston & Trent, 1982; Rindfuss, Morgan,& Swicegood, 1988).

The importance of postponements as a key factor in childlessness under-lines the role of indecision and lifetime ambivalence, which in the longer runmay produce “voluntary” and “involuntary” childlessness. Postponements havemajor consequences, partly on account of the relationship between age andfecundity (te Velde & Pearson, 2002). The longer the delay in family for-mation, the greater the risk of primary sterility. The resulting involun-tary childlessness may cause a continuing sense of loss, which one authordescribed as “one of the most traumatic experiences people have to livewith” (Beets, 1996, p. 16). Veevers (1971), however, argued that demogra-phers have tended to overestimate the importance of physiological factorsin explaining childlessness among women who marry late. Using Canadiandata for 1961, the author showed that there was no uniformity across popula-tions in the proportions of women marrying at later ages and remaining child-less. From this, Veevers concluded that greater emphasis should be placed on“psychological disinclination to parenthood,” that is, on voluntary factors




that can explain late marriage and childlessness. For example, recent researchhas examined couple disagreement about fertility preferences as an addi-tional factor that appears to contribute to fertility postponement and to lowerfertility overall (Thomson, 1997; Thomson & Hoem, 1998; Voas, 2003).

In West German opinion polls since 1953, less than 5% of women have saidthat they did not want to have children (Schwarz, 1986); however, this is farfewer than the actual proportions remaining childless. Likewise, similar sur-veys in other European countries mostly found that only 2% to 5% of youngwomen did not want any children (Coleman, 1996). Respondents evidentlywish to give the appearance of conforming to “traditional” family norms; how-ever, postponements strengthen preferences for a lifestyle without children.

Conclusion

Given the resurgence of childlessness in contemporary societies, the 19thand early 20th centuries provide potentially enlightening points of compari-son. It appears to have been unexceptional for cohorts of women bornbefore the 1920s to have had more than 15% childless. Indeed, lower levelsof childlessness among the cohorts born between 1925 and 1945 seem atyp-ical in light of earlier and later developments. Social norms probably pres-sured some into assuming “traditional” family roles because there were fewsocially acceptable, or economically viable, alternatives.

In the past, childlessness seems to have been inconspicuous because itoccurred in conjunction with a large family system. A notable feature of thepresent situation, and a major reason for concern about contemporary child-lessness, is that it is occurring in the context of a small family system. Child-lessness can now make a substantial difference between population growthand long-term population decline.

Compared with the childless in younger generations today, the childlessaged are a little-known, even invisible, social group. Research needs to addresstheir invisibility to enable a proper appreciation of the circumstances andpotential vulnerabilities of a substantial minority within the aged population(see also Kreager, 2004). Future generations should benefit from lessonslearned because the proportions childless are unlikely to fall below 10% in anyof the more developed countries considered here. Indeed, Hakim (2000) pre-dicts a “stable plateau in most rich modern societies” of 20% childless.

Further inquiry into the history of childlessness could also answer ques-tions that may potentially enlighten our understanding of the nature and impli-cations of childlessness generally. How were lifelong singlehood, delayed




marriage, or remaining childless within marriage perceived in past genera-tions? Were these statuses always “involuntary” and imposed by circum-stances? What became of the “maiden aunts” who cared for their own mothersin old age? How common were adoptions and stepfamilies, and to what extentdid these substitute for biological offspring? How did people fare in laterlife without children, pensions, and aged care institutions? Answers to thesequestions would help to provide a comparative perspective in our under-standing of the present increase in, supposedly, “voluntary” childlessness andthe adaptations people make in their later years (see Anderson, 1984; Hufton,1984; Rowland 1998a). The prevalence of childlessness in older cohortsemphasizes the importance of research into the alternatives, adaptations, andsocial policy provisions available to people who are without the potentialsupport of offspring.

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Beets, G. (1996). Does the increasing age at first birth lead to increases in involuntary child-lessness? In M. C. Devernardi (Ed.), Evolution or revolution in European population:Contributed papers sessions I-IV (pp. 15-30). Milan: Franco Angeli.

Bloom, D. E., & Pebley, A. R. (1982). Voluntary childlessness: A review of the evidence andimplications. Population Research and Policy Review, 1, 203-224.

Bongaarts, J. (2001). Fertility and reproductive preferences in post-transitional societies.Population and Development Review, 27, S260-S281.

Borrie, W. D. (1994). The European peopling of Australia: A demographic history 1788-1988.Canberra: Australian National University, Demography Program.

Brockmanm, H., & Klein, T. (2004). Love and death in Germany: The marital biography andits effect on mortality. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 567-581.

Bulcroft, R., & Teachman, J. (2004). Ambiguous constructions: Development of a childless orchild-free life course. In M. Coleman & L. H. Ganong (Eds.), Handbook of contemporaryfamilies: Considering the past, contemplating the future (pp. 116-135). Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage.

Caldwell, J. C. (1982). Fertility control. In Population of Australia (Country Monograph Series 9),(pp. 230-258). New York: United Nations.

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