Abstract
Parenting desires, intentions, and the underlying motivation for parenthood are well documented in the context of heterosexual couple parenthood, while among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people research is limited. The main goal of this study was to explore parenting desire and different reasons to become a parent or remain childfree among LGBTIQ people in Croatia. 486 childless LGBTIQ people participated in an on-line survey. In the quantitative part of the study, parenting desire and reasons for and against parenthood were measured, while the qualitative part analysed the answers to open-ended questions about additional reasons that influence the desire to want or not to want children. The results showed that 46% of the participants want to become parents, 35% did not know, and 19% reported they do not want to have children. The main reasons for parenthood among the participants who want children were internal – the desire to give love, share knowledge, and develop a special bond with a child. The participants who do not want to have children also stressed internal reasons against parenthood, such as restricted personal freedom, high responsibility, and the amount of workload they perceive as a part of parenthood. Several additional reasons for and against parenthood emerged from the qualitative data. Some reasons reflected universal issues unrelated to sexual orientation or gender identity, while others conveyed concerns related to social and legal barriers that LGBTIQ people face when it comes to parenthood.
Highlights
Why people are less likely to have children and what is their motivation to become parents or remain childfree have been crucial issues for understanding the changes in demographic trends in contemporary Western societies
This study aims to broaden our understanding of the reasons for and against parenthood among LGBTIQ people in Croatia, where legal barriers to parenthood for same-sex couples are still strong, and where prejudice and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity are common (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014; Huić, Jugović and Kamenov, 2015; Kamenov, Huić and Jelić, 2019; Vučković Juroš, Dobrotić and Zrinščak, 2015; Vučković Juroš, 2019)
We find it very important that we could compare our results to those found in Croatia among a general population of participants in emerging adulthood (18 to 30 years of age; Hanzec Marković and Štambuk, 2019)
Summary
Why people are less likely to have children and what is their motivation to become parents or remain childfree have been crucial issues for understanding the changes in demographic trends in contemporary Western societies. Research on this topic was mostly done among heterosexual and cisgender people, parenting desire and parenthood are reserved for those couples or individuals. People who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or queer (LGBTIQ2) want to become parents or already are parents. The research on parenthood that included LGBTIQ people was mainly focussed on whether parental sexual orientation harms children’s development. Having a transgender parent was not found to affect a child’s gender identity or sexual orientation, nor to have a negative impact on other developmental milestones (Stotzer, Herman and Hasenbush, 2014)
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