The social networks of involuntarily childless older men

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648 (2017) The social networks of involuntarily childless older men. In: British Society of Gerontology 46th Annual Conference, 5 July 2017 - 7 July 2017, The University of Swansea, Swansea, UK.

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Abstract

The global trend of an increasingly ageing population and a declining fertility rate has been widely accepted. Moreover, as men’s mortality rates are predicted to soon equal women’s, the gender profile of the UK’s ageing population is predicted to change. Childless men are, compared to women, missing from gerontological, sociological, infertility, and psychological research. These fields have all mainly focussed on family and women, with the fertility intentions, history and experience of older men being overlooked. Involuntary childlessness may be seen as a complex bereavement formed by multiple losses with distress levels in both men and women in this population have been found to be as high those with grave medical conditions This paper aims to provide some insight in to the social networks of involuntarily childless older men. Drawing on 27 in-depth biographical interviews (lasting 1-5 hours) conducted with 14 men aged between 49 and 82 from across the country. This paper highlights the complex intersections between men’s experience of involuntary childlessness and agency, structure, and relationships. It was found there are diverse routes of entering involuntary childlessness of which interpersonal skills, partner selection, timing of relationships, and the assumption of fertility are important factors. The accounts also demonstrated the importance of relationships: the centrality of it to those in them and the desire for one for those not. Grand fatherhood was referenced through four routes: Latent, Adopted, Surrogate, and Proxy. This paper demonstrates how men’s involuntary childlessness affects their social networks.