Life-Course Trajectories of Childless Women: Country-Specific or Universal?

Tocchioni, Valentina; Rybińska, Anna; Mynarska, Monika; Matysiak, Anna; Vignoli, Daniele

While existing research has documented complexities in biographies of childless women, few studies to date have systematically examined the life-course pathways of the childless from a comparative, cross-country perspective. In this paper, we analyse biographies of childless women in four countries—Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United States—in order to investigate whether pathways into childlessness are country-specific or commonly shared across institutional, cultural, and geographical settings. Partnership, education, and employment histories are examined using sequence analysis with dynamic Hamming distance and cluster analysis. Discrepancy analysis indicates a country-effect in women's biographies although life-course patterns identified in each country share similarities. Overall, seven life-course trajectories have been identified, with the most numerous cluster comprising single, working women who completed their education at a relatively young age. The results highlight a marked variation in the life-courses of childless women. Put together, these findings provide descriptive evidence for both country-specificity and cross-country similarity in the pathways to childlessness.

CHILDLESSNESS; LIFE course approach; SEQUENCE analysis; CLUSTER analysis (Statistics); WOMEN employees

European Journal of Population, 2022, Vol 38, Issue 5, p1315

0168-6577

Academic Journal

10.1007/s10680-022-09624-5