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Handbook of Marriage and the Family pp 369–395Cite as

Voluntary Childlessness

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Abstract

What do we know about voluntary childlessness? For a decade now, there has been an accelerating accumulation of research on this topic, especially since 1975. That the proliferation of data has been fairly recent is indicated by the fact that only 10 of the 47 studies that were located for the purposes of this chapter were completed before 1975. As might be expected in the early stages of investigation, most of the research that has been done is either exploratory or descriptive. Although it has been invaluable in the generation of insights, the time has come to move beyond these initial steps in the research process.

Keywords

  • Marital Adjustment
  • Childless Woman
  • Childless Couple
  • Attitude Certainty
  • Voluntary Childlessness

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Sharon K. Houseknecht

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  1. Union Graduate School of the Union Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Marvin B. Sussman

  2. Department of Individual and Family Studies, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA

    Marvin B. Sussman & Suzanne K. Steinmetz & 

  3. Department of Sociology, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

    Suzanne K. Steinmetz

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Houseknecht, S.K. (1987). Voluntary Childlessness. In: Sussman, M.B., Steinmetz, S.K. (eds) Handbook of Marriage and the Family. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7151-3_14

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