Childlessness: measurement, determinants, and trends

The purpose of this study is to identify the socio-economic factors influencing depression among infertile women who received treatment of assisted reproduction technologies and provide the information of evidence-based heath care program for infertile women.

Method:
- Retrospective study involving self-report questionnaire and focus group
interviews from June to September, 2010.
- For the data analysis, technical statistics, χ2-test, multiple regression and logistic regression analysis using SPSS/WIN 14.0 program.

Result: Financial burden of medical treatment, duration since infertility diagnosis, relationship with husband and in-laws were significant factors, which explained 21.9% of the variance in depression among infertile women( p<.001). In logistic regression analysis, a severe level of depression was found among the infertile women who experienced the high degree of financial burden(OR=2.92), broken intimate relationship with husband and his family(OR=3.11, OR=2.01), were diagnosed infertility over two years ago(OR=3.15).

Conclusion: Emotional support from husband and in-laws was identified to relieve depression of infertile women. The depression care intervention should target first the infertile women who were in low economic classes and diagnosed infertility over two years ago.

Studies of women’s childlessness have shown strong associations with socioeconomic status (SES) indicators, particularly education. In addition to socioeconomic considerations, families are known to influence women’s fertility outcomes throughout the world though various mechanisms: childcare provision, financial transfers, emotional closeness, and proximity. This research tests the hypothesis that the effect of kin proximity, measured by living with one’s parents into adulthood, on women’s probability of remaining childless will vary depending upon SES environment. We find that while living with one’s parents in adulthood positively relates to being childless, this association is stronger for low-wealth women than high-wealth women controlling for education, partnership, and other factors known to affect fertility. It is suggested that the effects of proximity to family on women’s fertility may vary by wealth due to the effects of resource stress or abundance. Either way, these results suggest clearly that the associations between family indicators and women’s fertility are flexible with SES environments.

Infertility in many South-East-Asian countries, has been relatively a neglected field of social science research as these countries still focus on high fertility and its control and not on the dynamics of infertility. Data from various countries have shown that infertility is affecting a large number of couples even in the highly fertile India. On the contrary, this paper shows that the infertility in India is relatively low although the levels have increased over the years. A regional variation in infertility has also been observed wherein the Southern Regions exhibited higher levels of infertility over that of the other. A logistic regression run has shown that the infertility in India is mainly determined by biological and life-style related factors rather than by the socio-economic factors. Infertility also affects the quality and well-being of women’s life adversely by having greater marital instability, higher exposure to domestic violence and by lowered autonomy.

Western societies age rapidly. Today, people do not only live longer, they also have less children. These developments exert considerable pressure on pension and health systems. Children are the most important source of support in old age, especially when there is no partner. Older parents also transfer significant amounts of money to them. In times of rising childlessness we thus face new challenges: On which support networks do childless older people rely? (How) can the lack of children be compensated? Who provides help and care? Who profits from financial resources of the elderly?

We assess the support networks the childless aged 50 and over in 14 European countries based on SHARE focusing the importance of the extended family as well as public services. Our analyses show that financial transfers are diminished considerably and private help is often taken over by the extended family and neighbours. Intense care tasks, however, are mostly provided by public providers. The family and especially intergenerational relations play an important role for support in old age. When there are no children, vital support for older persons has to be taken over by public providers in many cases. In countries with low service provision, childless older people thus experience a lack of help, especially when depending on vital care.

In this paper we first examine overall trends since 1910 in levels of childlessness among ever-married White, Black and Hispanic women for the years to 1995, and then among all women for the more recent years. We next use data from the 2006-08 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to separate the women into three categories of childlessness and a “childed” category. In our analysis of the 3,689 White women, 1,766 or 47.9% were “childed,” 1,130 or 30.6% were “temporarily childless,” 629 or 17.1% were “voluntarily childless,” and only 164 or 4.4% were involuntarily childless. Then we estimated a multinomial logistic regression equation for the White women to predict childlessness. We found that education is both positively and significantly associated with being voluntarily, involuntarily, and temporarily childless, relative to having children. The dummy variable indicating whether the woman is never married is positive and significant for all three categories of childless women; age has no statistically significant effect on being voluntarily or involuntarily childless, but is negatively and significantly associated with being temporarily childless. If our paper is accepted for presentation at the IUSSP meetings, we will also conduct similar analyses of Black women and Hispanic women.

This paper examines the factors associated with interval between marriage and first birth in Iran. Data were generated through in-depth interviews conducted with 30 married women aged 20-49 in Tehran. The result has shown that a short delay of entry into motherhood within the first three years of marriage has been common among women in their 20s who were born in the 1980s and thereafter. According to this study, delayed motherhood allows the women to reducing of costs of early marriage. In fact postponement of first birth is a compensatory strategy for women in Iran. This postponement has strong associations with marriage age, being a student and tendencies of women for higher education. The postponement also results from the fewer financial resources of young couple and their more valuation to family and children quality. However some indirect social control such as infertility stigma, social disapproval along with reducing continued interaction with extended family, restrict longer interval between marriage and first birth.
Keywords— first birth interval, marriage, motherhood, survival analysis, qualitative survey, Iran

Treatment seeking behaviour for infertility is affected by community’s socio-cultural norms. Using DLHS-3 data this study examines prevalence of infertility among currently married women of 8 EAG states of India that accounts for 45 percent of India’s population. Eight percent Indian and 51 percent EAG states women had infertility problems. The leading states were Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh. A significant proportion of women were Hindu, illiterates, aged 20-29 years, had rural background and age at consummation of marriage was less than 18 years. More than two fifth had taken treatment for infertility. Larger proportions of women were rich, Christian, hailed from other backward classes and had higher level of education. Around half Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa women had allopathic treatment but Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Bihar women had religious/traditional treatment. Multivariate analysis indicated that treatment seeking was affected educational and economic status. Allopathic treatment seeking was determined by knowledge factor and treatment cost. Infertility was highest in Bihar but highest proportion of UP women took treatment for infertility. More Bihar women had responded to infertility treatment. There is a need to look at infertility problems as an issue in domain of reproductive health research.