Abstract
Though not having children is no longer as unusual as it once was, voluntary childlessness is still a controversial choice that might generate moral outrage against people who choose not to have children. The current study explored the associated factors related to the attitudes towards voluntary childlessness in a sample of 418 adults aged 18 to 82 (M = 28.94, SD = 12.63, 76.1% females). Specifically, we investigated the links between participants’ attitudes toward benevolent and hostile sexism, religiosity, and a series of demographic variables (i.e., age, gender, education, relationship status, and parental status). Based on previous related literature, we hypothesized that sexism would mediate the relationship between religiosity and voluntary childlessness. Results suggested that older and married participants with children had more negative attitudes related to voluntary childlessness. Additionally, overall sexism and its two dimensions (hostile and benevolent sexism) partially mediated the relationship between religiosity and attitudes towards voluntary childlessness. The practical implications of these results are discussed in light of Romania’s cultural and socio-economic context, a post-communist country and the most religious state in Europe.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
The raw data supporting this article’s conclusions will be made available by the authors without undue reservations.
Code Availability
Not applicable.
References
Abma, J. C., & Martinez, G. M. (2006). Childlessness among older women in the United States: Trends and profiles. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68, 1045–1056. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00312.x
Ahmadi, S. E., Rafiey, H., Sajjadi, H., & Nosratinejad, F. (2019). Explanatory model of voluntary childlessness among Iranian couples in Tehran: A grounded theory approach. Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences, 44(6), 449–456. https://doi.org/10.30476/ijms.2019.44964
Ashburn-Nardo, L. (2017). Parenthood as a moral imperative? Moral outrage and the stigmatization of voluntarily childfree women and men. Sex Roles, 76, 393–401. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0606-1
Avison, M., & Furnham, A. (2015). Personality and voluntary childlessness. Journal of Population Research, 32, 45–67. https://doi.org/. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-014-9140-6
Bădescu, G., Comşa, M., Sandu, D., & Stănculescu, M. (2007). Barometrul de Opinie Publică 1998–2007 [Barometer for Public Opinion 1998–2007]. SOROS Foundation.
Bello, F. A., Akinajo, O. R., & Olayemi, O. (2014). In-vitro fertilization, gamete donation and surrogacy: Perceptions of women attending an infertility clinic in Ibadan, Nigeria. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 18(2), 127–133.
Berelson, B. (1979). Romania’s 1966 anti-abortion decree: The demographic experience of the first decade. Population Studies, 33(2), 209–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.1979.10410438
Burn, S. M., & Busso, J. (2005). Ambivalent sexism, scriptural literalism, and religiosity. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29, 412–418. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2005.00241.x.
CBS/AP (2014). Dropping birth rates threaten global economic growth. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/droppingbirth-rates-threaten-global-economic-growth/
Crittenden, A. (2001). The price of motherhood: Why the most important job in the world is still the least valued. Metropolitan Books.
Correll, S. J., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? American Journal of Sociology, 112, 1297–1338.
Demeny, E. (2017). Networks of reproduction: Politics and practices surrounding surrogacy in 486 Romania. In M. Davies (Ed.), Babies for Sale? Surrogacy, human rights and the politics of reproduction. Zed Books.
Dever, M., & Saugeres, L. (2004). I forgot to have children! Untangling links between feminism, careers and voluntary childlessness. Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, 6(2), 116–126.
DeOllos, I. Y., & Kapinus, C. A. (2002). Aging childless individuals and couples: Suggestions for new directions in research. Sociological Inquiry, 72, 72–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-682X.00006
European Commssion (2019). Romania: Population: Demographic situation, official language, and religions. https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/eurydice/content/population-demographic-situation-languages-and-religions-64_ro
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G* power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175–191. https://doi.org/. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193146
Flynn, L. B. (2019). The young and the restless: housing access in the critical years. West European Politics, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2019.1603679
Frejka, T., & Calot, G. (2001). Cohort reproductive patterns in low-fertility countries. Population and Development Review, 27, 103–132. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2001.00103.x
Fritz, M. S., & MacKinnon, D. P. (2007). Required sample size to detect the mediated effect. Psychological Science, 18(3), 233–239.
Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). The ambivalent sexism inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 491–512. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.491
Glick, P., Lameiras, M., & Castro, Y. R. (2002). Education and Catholic religiosity as predictors of hostile and benevolent sexism toward women and men. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 47(9–10), 433–441. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021696209949.
Glick, P., Sakallı-Uğurlu, N., Akbaş, G., Orta, I. M., & Ceylan, S. (2016). Why do women endorse honor beliefs? Ambivalent sexism and religiosity as predictors. Sex Roles, 75, 543–554. https://doi.org/. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-015-0550-5
González, MJ., & Jurado-Guerrero, T. (2006). Remaining childless in affluent economies: a comparison of France, West Germany, Italy and Spain, 1994–2001. Rester sans enfant dans des sociétés d'abondances: une comparaison de la France, l'Allemagne de l'Ouest et l'Espagne, 19994–2001. European Journal of Population, 22, 317–352. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-006-9000-y.
Götmark, F., & Andersson, M. (2020). Human fertility in relation to education, economy, r eligion, contraception, and family planning programs. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 265. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-8331-7.
Grunberg, P., Miner, S., & Zelkowitz, P. (2020). Infertility and perceived stress: The role of identity concern in treatment-seeking men and women. Human Fertility, 5, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647273.2019.1709667
Hakim, C. (2002). A new approach to explaining fertility patterns: Preference theory. Population and Development Review, 29(3), 349–373.
Hakim, C. (2005). Childlessness in Europe: Research report to the Economic and Social Research Council (10/03/2005), available at: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-000-230074/read.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional Process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Press.
Hayes, A. F., & Scharkow, M. (2013). The relative trustworthiness of inferential tests of the indirect effect in statistical mediation analysis: Does method really matter? Psychological Science, 24(10), 1918–1927.
Hayford, S. R., & Morgan, S. P. (2008). Religiosity and fertility in the United States: The role of fertility intentions. Social forces; a Scientific Medium of Social Study and Interpretation, 86(3), 1163–1188 https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.0.0000
Holton, S., Fisher, J., & Rowe, H. (2009). Attitudes toward women and motherhood: Their role in Australian women’s childbearing behavior. Sex Roles, 61, 677. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-009-9659-8
Hord, C., David, H. P., Donnay, F., & Wolf, M. (1991). Reproductive health in Romania: Reversing the Ceausescu legacy. Studies in Family Planning, 22(4), 231. https://doi.org/10.2307/1966479
Huber, S. (2003). Zentralität und Inhalt. Ein neues multidimensionales Messinstrument der Religiosität (Vol. 9). Leske & Budrich.
Husnu, S. (2016). The role of ambivalent sexism and religiosity in predicting attitudes toward childlessness in Muslim undergraduate students. Sex Roles, 75(11–12), 573–582. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0639-5
Igreja, A. R., & Ricou, M. (2019). Surrogacy: Challenges and ambiguities. The new bioethics. A Multidisciplinary Journal of Biotechnology and the Body, 25(1), 60–77. https://doi.org/. https://doi.org/10.1080/20502877.2019.1564007
Kaklamanidou, B.-D. (2019). The voluntarily childless heroine: A postfeminist television oddity. Television & New Media, 20(3), 275–293. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476417749743.
Kelly, M. (2010). Women's voluntary childlessness: A radical rejection of motherhood? WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 37, 157–172. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.0.0164
Kopper, B. A., & Smith, M. S. (2001). Knowledge and attitudes toward infertility and childless couples. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 2275–2291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2001.tb00175.x
Koropeckyj-Cox, T., & Pendell, G. (2007). Attitudes about childlessness in the United States: Correlates of positive, neutral, and negative responses. Journal of Family Issues, 28, 1054–1082. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X07301940
Lachance-Grzela, M., & Bouchard, G. (2010). Why do women do the lion’s share of housework? A decade of research. Sex Roles, 63, 767–780.
Lawrence, E., Cobb, R. J., Rothman, A. D., Rothman, M. T., & Bradbury, T. N. (2008). Marital satisfaction across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 41–50.
Letherby, G. (2002). Childless and bereft?: Stereotypes and realities in relation to ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ childlessness and womanhood. Sociological Inquiry, 72(1), 7–20.
Livingston, G., & Cohn, D. (2010). Childlessness up among all women; down among women with advanced Degrees. Pew Research Centre. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/06/25/childlessness-up-among-all-women-down-among-women-with-advanced-degrees/
Maftei, A., & Holman, A.C. (2020). Moral women, immoral technologies? Romanian Women’s perceptions of assisted reproductive technologies versus adoption. The New Bioethics. A Multidisciplinary Journal of Biotechnology and the Body, 26(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/2050287.
Mahoney, A. (2005). Religion and conflict in marital and parent – Child relationships. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 689–706 7.2020.1796256.
Marinescu, R.-E. (2020). The myth of motherhood in communist and Postcommunist Romania: From pro-Natalist policies to neoliberal views. In R. Ciolaneanu & R.-E. Marinescu (Eds.), Handbook of research on translating myth and reality in women imagery across disciplines. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-6458-5
McQuillan, K. (2004). When does religion influence fertility? Population and Development Review, 30(1), 25–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2004.00002.x
Merz, E. M., & Liefbroer, A. C. (2012). The attitude toward voluntary childlessness in Europe: Cultural and institutional explanations. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74, 587–600. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00972.x
Mills, M., Rindfuss, R. R., McDonald, P., & te Velde, E. (2011). Why do people postpone parenthood? Reasons and social policy incentives. Human Reproduction Update, 17, 848–860.
Mills, M. C., Tanturri, M. L., Rotkirch, A., Sobotka, T., Takacs, J., Miettinen, A., Faludi, C., Kantsa, V., & Nasiri, D. (2015). State-of-the-art report childlessness. Families And Societies, 32.
Mitnick, D. M., Heyman, R. E., & Smith Shep, A. M. (2009). Changes in relationship satisfaction across the transition to parenthood: A meta-analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 848–852.
Mikołajczak, M., & Pietrzak, J. (2014). Ambivalent sexism and religion: Connected through values. Sex Roles, 70(9), 387–399. https://doi.org/. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-014-0379-3
Mollen, D. (2013). Reproductive rights and informed consent: Toward a more inclusive discourse. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 14, 162–182.
Moulasha, K., & Rao, G. R. (1999). Religion-specific differentials in fertility and family planning. Economic and Political Weekly, 34(42/43), 3047–3051.
Napier, J. L., Thorisdottir, H., & Jost, J. T. (2010). The joy of sexism? A multinational investigation of hostile and benevolent justifications for gender inequality and their relations to subjective well-being. Sex Roles, 62, 405–419. https://doi.org/. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-009-9712-7
Noordhuizen, S., de Graaf, P., & Sieben, I. (2010). The public acceptance of voluntary childlessness in the Netherlands: From 20 to 90 per cent in 30 years. Social Indicators Research, 99, 163–181. https://doi.org/. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9574-y
Paciello, M., D'Errico, F., & Saleri, G. (2019). Moral struggles in social media discussion: The case of sexist aggression. SAT@SMC. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2474/shortpaper3.pdf
Passini, S. (2013). What do I think of others in relation to myself? Moral identity and moral inclusion in explaining prejudice. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 23(3), 261–269. https://doi.org/. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2117
Peri-Rotem N. (2016). Religion and fertility in Western Europe: Trends across cohorts in Britain, France and the Netherlands. European Journal of Population = Revue europeenne de demographie, 32(2), 231–265. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-015-9371-z.
Pinter, B., Hakim, M., Seidman, D. S., Kubba, A., Kishen, M., & Di Carlo, C. (2016). Religion and family planning. The European journal of contraception & reproductive health care: the official journal of the European Society of Contraception, 21(6), 486–495 https://doi.org/10.1080/13625187.2016.1237631
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40(3), 879–891.
Purewal, S., & Van den Akker, O. (2007). The socio-cultural and biological meaning of parenthood. Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology, 28(2), 79–86. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1080/01674820701409918.
Rijken, A. J., & Merz, E.-M. (2014). Double standards: Differences in norms on voluntary childlessness for men and women. European Sociological Review, 30(4), 470–482. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcu051
Sakallı-Uğurlu, N., Türkoğlu, B., Kuzlak, A., & Gupta, A. (2018). Stereotypes of single and married women and men in Turkish culture. Current Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9920-9.
Sánchez-Jiménez, V., & Muñoz-Fernández, N. (2021). When are sexist attitudes risk factors for dating aggression? The role of moral disengagement in Spanish adolescents. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18, 1947. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041947
Sobotka, T. (2009). Sub-replacement fertility intentions in Austria. European Journal of Population, 25, 387–412.
Stan, L., & Turcescu, L. (2000). The Romanian orthodox church and post-communist democratisation. Europe-Asia Studies, 52(8), 1467–1488. https://doi.org/10.1080/713663138
Sverdlik, N., & Rechter, E. (2020). Religious and secular roads to justify wrongdoing: How values interact with culture in explaining moral disengagement attitudes. Journal of Research in Personality, 87, 103981. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2020.103981
Tanturri, M. L., & Mencarini, L. (2008). Childless or childfree? Paths to voluntary childlessness in Italy. Population and Development Review, 34, 51–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2008.00205.x
Taşdemir, N., & Sakallı-Uğurlu, N. (2010). The relationships between ambivalent sexism and religiosity among Turkish university students. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 62(7–8), 420–426. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-009-9693-6
Testa, M. R. (2012). Family sizes in Europe: Evidence from the 2011 Eurobarometer survey. European demographic research papers 2. : Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Vidad, F. C. (2009). Mental health professionals’ perceptions of voluntarily childless couples. Dissertations & Theses, 126 http://aura.antioch.edu/etds/126
van de Kaa, D. J. (1987). Europe’s second demographic transition. Population Bulletin, 42, 1–59.
Vinson, C., Mollen, D., & Smith, N. G. (2010). Perceptions of childfree women: The role of perceivers’ and targets’ ethnicity. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 20, 426–432. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.1049
Whitehead, B. D. (2006). The state of our unions, 2006: The social health of marriage in America (National Marriage Project Report). Rutgers University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethics Statement
This study’s protocol was designed in concordance with ethical requirements specific to the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University (Iasi, Romania), before beginning the study and supervised by Alexandra Maftei. All participants voluntarily participated in the study and gave written informed consent following the Declaration of Helsinki and the national laws from Romania regarding ethical conduct in scientific research, technological development, and innovation.
• No animal studies are presented in this manuscript.
• Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.
The authors declare no financial interests/personal relationships, which may be considered as potential competing interests.
Ethical Approval
This study’s protocol was designed and approved by the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University (Iasi, Romania), before beginning the study and supervised by Alexandra Maftei.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Maftei, A., Holman, AC. & Marchiș, M. Choosing a life with no children. The role of sexism on the relationship between religiosity and the attitudes toward voluntary childlessness. Curr Psychol 42, 11486–11496 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02446-4
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02446-4