“How is a man supposed to be…”: bio-narratives of older involuntarily childless men

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648 (2017) “How is a man supposed to be…”: bio-narratives of older involuntarily childless men. In: Manchester Metropolitan University Faculty of Health, Psychology & Social Care Annual Research Conference 2017, 5 July 2017, Manchester, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The implications of the global trend of declining fertility rates and an increasingly ageing population have been extensively reported. Childless men are, compared to women, missing from gerontological, psychological, reproduction, and sociological research. These fields have mainly focussed on family formation and practices with the fertility intentions, history, and experience of older men being overlooked. Over the past 15 years research literature on both involuntary childlessness and ageing has highlighted the paucity of material on men’s experience. Infertility research has shown that failure to fulfil the status of parenthood may lead to a complex form of bereavement and is a significant challenge to identity. In the past three decades there has been an escalation in the research and general literature surrounding fathers, fathering, and fatherhood. Recent research into contemporary grand-parenting has highlighted the intricacy and importance of intergenerational relationships to grandfathers. Drawing on my auto/biographical PhD study, this piece examines how 14 self-defined involuntarily childless men managed non-fatherhood. The findings demonstrated the complex intersections between the men’s attitude to fatherhood, non-fatherhood, and childlessness over the life course. This study countered the stereotype that fatherhood is not important to men and challenges research that reports that men are not affected by the social, emotional, and relational aspects of involuntary childlessness.