1 / 12

Roona Simpson Centre for Research on Families and Relationships University of Edinburgh

‘Defying Nature’?: Contemporary Discourses around Delayed Childbearing and Childlessness in Britain. Roona Simpson Centre for Research on Families and Relationships University of Edinburgh Roona.Simpson@ed.ac.uk GeNet Seminar, London School of Economics, 31 st May 2007.

glora
Download Presentation

Roona Simpson Centre for Research on Families and Relationships University of Edinburgh

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. ‘Defying Nature’?: Contemporary Discourses around Delayed Childbearing and Childlessness in Britain Roona Simpson Centre for Research on Families and Relationships University of Edinburgh Roona.Simpson@ed.ac.uk GeNet Seminar, London School of Economics, 31st May 2007

  2. “Women want to ‘have it all’, but biology is unchanged; deferring defies nature and risks heartbreak” Bewley S, Davies M, Braude P. ‘Which Career First?’, British Medical Journal 331 (2005),17th September:588-589 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/

  3. Completed Family Size, Selected Birth Cohortsat age 45 Source: ONS Birth Statistics, Series FM1 33

  4. Economic Perspectives: • Rational Choice Theory Economic analyses of family (Becker 1991, Ermisch 1988) • Risk Aversion Theory (Oppenheimer 1994; Hobson and Olah 2006; Lewis 2006)

  5. Cultural Perspectives: • Post-Materialist Values Theory Second Demographic Transition/ Individualisation Theory (van der Kaa 1987, Lesthaeghe 1995, Beck 1992, Giddens 1992) • Preference Theory (Hakim 2003)

  6. Gender Perspectives • Gender Equity Theory (McDonald 2000) • Changing Gender and Generational Relations (Irwin 2000, 2005; MacKinnon 1995)

  7. Study on Contemporary Spinsterhood Sample characteristics: 37 never-married and single (not in a cohabiting relationship for at least five years) heterosexual women, aged between 35 and 83. Included solo mothers. Range of socio-economic backgrounds. Methodological approach: Life History interviews, Narrative ontology - interpreting these accounts as particular stories produced by participants to make sense of their lives and define who they are (Somers, 1994)

  8. “When I was younger I always assumed that I would get married and have children […] it was just part of what would happen to me […] But then you get to the stage where you realise it’s just not going to happen, and if it’s not going to happen, that’s it” [Maureen, 53]

  9. “I’ve never felt maternal […] I am very different from her (sister) because I don’t have this need for children and she does, and that must be dreadful […] I don’t have any of that – luckily”. Joan, 40

  10. It was bound up with all kinds of things to do with the fact that I had started working very, very long hours again […] you can’t have a proper life like that […] I’m not sure that [promotion] matters, to be honest. I’m not sure that for me it is the be all and end all (pause). And do I want to be working at that rate for ever and ever? No I don’t. I mean, I would have had to do something [Brenda, 37]

  11. A lot of guys I think have still got this mentality that they’re, you know, they’re looking for […] the whore in the bedroom […] their ‘mother’ to look after them […] you know, they’re still kind of looking with the old-fashioned values, whereas girls now are saying ‘well no, sorry mate, after I come in from my work the last thing I’m going to do is go into the kitchen’ Louise, 36

  12. Notions of ‘choice’, or ‘preferences’ are far more complex than rational choice theory allows. Decision-making about childbearing an embedded, ongoing process. Importance of considering changing gendered subjectivities in the context of changing gender relations, and the implications of this for shifts in motivations, desires and behaviours.Ontological assumptions implicit to explanatory theories and underlying social policies - implications of potential ‘mismatch’ affecting efficacy of latter.

More Related