Stigma Management among the Voluntarily Childless

Abstract

Individuals who choose not to be parents are viewed in terms of negative stereotypes and experience social pressures to alter or justify their status. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with twenty-four voluntarily childless women and men and a focus group that included seven of the interviewed individuals. Inductive analysis discovered the techniques that individuals used, in self-interaction and social interactions with various audiences, to manage stigmatized identity and preserve a good self. Strategies included passing, identity substitution, condemning the condemnors, asserting a right to self-fulfillment, claiming biological deficiency, and redefining the situation. Primarily defensive, reactive techniques accepted pronatalist norms, intermediate techniques challenged conventional ideologies, and proactive techniques redefined childlessness as a socially valuable lifestyle. Use of these strategies was part of the “identity work” that individuals engaged in to reject discreditable identities as voluntarily childless individuals.