Negotiating the fatherhood mandate: the experiences of older involuntarily childless men

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648 (2016) Negotiating the fatherhood mandate: the experiences of older involuntarily childless men. In: European Sociological Association Midterm Conference (RN13 - Sociology of Families and Intimate Lives): Parenthood: Perspectives on Family Lives, 6 July 2016 - 8 July 2016, University of Bristol, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Background: 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, psychological, reproductive, and sociological research. 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. To investigate the influences on how older men became involuntarily childless the study aimed to: • explore the participants' attitudes and behaviours in relation to the experience of involuntary childlessness; • examine the influences on the participants' quality of life. One objective of the study was to add to the debates surrounding reproduction and ageing by bringing the experiences of older involuntary childless men to the attention of the public, academics, policy makers, service providers, and practitioners. Research questions: 1: What are men’s attitudes and behaviours in relation to their experience of ‘involuntary’ childlessness? 2: How do men describe the influence of ‘involuntary’ childlessness in their quality of life and relationships with close, familial, and wider social networks? 3: What are ‘involuntarily’ childless men's expectations of the future? Methods: This qualitative study used a pluralistic framework drawn from the biographical, feminist, gerontological and life course approaches. to examine the experiences of older involuntarily childless men. A thematic analysis was applied to the semi-structured interviews conducted with 14 men aged between 49 and 82 years. Findings: The analysis showed the complex intersections between men’s experience of involuntary childlessness over the life course with personal agency, socio-cultural structures, and biological and social clocks. This study challenges research that reports that men are not affected by the social, emotional, and relational aspects of involuntary childlessness. The participants’ narratives showed a range of diverse elements that affected the men’s experience of involuntary childlessness: upbringing, economics, timing of events, interpersonal skills, sexual orientation, partner selection, relationship formation and dissolution, bereavement, 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. Awareness of feeling both a sense of ‘outsiderness’ and a fear of being viewed a paedophile were widely reported.