Socio-Demographic Correlates of Childlessness

"The purpose of this paper is to examine childless women and the different socio-demographic characteristics associated with this demographic pattern. The study focuses on the proportion of ever-married and currently married women 15 years of age and over who were childless in 1971. The data source is the 1971 Canadian census 1 percent sample tape based on individual files, which yields a total sample of 46,376 women from all across Canada. The major correlations with childlessness among these women are age and marriage duration. The longer (and earlier) a woman is married, the lower the levels of childlessness when obvious demographic factors are controlled." It is found that "ascribed characteristics of ever-married women provide no meaningful associations to childlessness, and this description is applicable to the variables of religion, ethnicity, mother tongue, home language, and place of birth. Achieved characteristics, especially among the younger cohorts of women, are more revealing, and women who have higher family incomes, higher levels of education, who are living in large urban places and are involved in the labor force (among themselves highly correlated variables) generally have higher rates of childlessness. Implications of these findings are discussed."

Census · Childlessness · Ethnic group · Fertility · Population · Sociology · Demography · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Psychology

• Childlessness in Canada 1971

  Open Access•Nigel Tomes•The Canadian Journal of Sociology•1985

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• Contextualizing voluntary childlessness within a postmodern model of reproduction

  Open Access•Rosemary Gillespie•Critical Social Policy•2001

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• Religious Homogamy and Voluntary Childlessness in Canada

  Open Access•Vijaya Krishnan•Sociological Perspectives•1993

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• Wife’s employment and cumulative family size in the United States, 1970 and 1960

  Open Access•Robert H Weller•Demography•1977

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• Income and childlessness in the United States

  Dudley L Poston•Social Biology•1974

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