Choosing Childlessness: Intentions of Voluntary Childlessness in the United States.

The article focuses on the voluntary childlessness in the United States. Approximately one in ten American women of childbearing age expect to remain childless. Many of these women are not infertile; instead they are choosing not to have children. Sufficient attention has not been paid to voluntary childlessness in the U.S., which is considered primarily a prenatal country. Voluntary childlessness is a recent trend in the American society emerging in part from the principles of gender equality and increasing female participation in the labor force. To date the reasons why individuals in marriage or cohabitation intend to remain childless and the attitudinal factors that facilitate or inhibit such intentions are unknown. Studying intentions is important because attitudinal factors that predict intentions also predict behavior indicating a consistent attitudinal and behavioral pattern. Furthermore, in order to understand fertility behavior, it is imperative to clearly understand intentions of childbearing because evidence suggests a causal relationship between fertility intentions and subsequent fertility behavior.