"How is a man supposed to be a man?” The experiences of older involuntarily childless men

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648 (2014) "How is a man supposed to be a man?” The experiences of older involuntarily childless men. In: Men's Health, Masculinities, Work and Wellbeing Conference, 19 March 2014, Trevelyan College, Durham University, UK.. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The global trend of a declining fertility rate and an increasingly ageing population has been extensively reported. Childless men are, compared to women, missing from gerontological, sociological, infertility, psychological research, and masculinities. These fields have all mainly focussed on family and women, with the fertility intentions, history and experience of older men being overlooked. Infertility research has shown that failure to fulfil both the personal, and socially accepted, status of parenthood leads to a complex form of bereavement and a significant challenge to identity. This paper is an overview of a PhD of the life experiences of older involuntarily childless men. In-depth biographical interviews were conducted with 14 men, aged between 49 and 82, at different locations across the country. The thematic analysis showed the complex intersections between men’s experience of involuntary childlessness and agency, structure, and relationships. The participant’s narratives showed a range of diverse elements that affected the trajectory of the men’s involuntary childlessness: interpersonal skills, partner selection, timing of relationships, and the assumption of fertility. The importance of relationship quality, and the significance of being partnered, was highlighted in the social networks of both those with and without partners. The search for meaning for four of the men, as they aged, was seen in their negotiation of a form of ‘grandfatherhood’ role: Adopted, Latent, Surrogate, and Proxy.