The impact of male childlessness

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648 (2016) The impact of male childlessness. SpermComet Blog.

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Abstract

Recognition of the impact of involuntary childlessness on men is important, not only because of actual and projected demographic change but also because of the lack of material examining male involuntary childlessness (Dykstra and Keizer, 2009). The vast bulk of social science discourse on reproduction is centred on women with little investigation of the male experience. This is based on the 'widely held but largely untested assumption’ (Inhorn, 2012: p.6) that men are disengaged from procreative intentions and outcomes. Consequently, men have become marginalised as the ‘second sex’ (Inhorn et al., 2009: p.1) in all areas of social science scholarship with childless men especially missing from demographical, gerontological, psychological, reproduction, and sociological research. For example, the number of childless men in the UK is unknown as only mothers fertility history is recorded at birth registration (Office for National Statistics, 2014).