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Pronatalism and Social Exclusion in Australian Society: Experiences of Women in their Reproductive Years with No Children

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Abstract

Pronatalism in Australian society constructs women as mothers, and places women who do not conform to pronatalist norms of stereotypical femininity because they have no children, at risk of stigmatisation and social exclusion. This paper explores the nature of pronatalism-driven social connection and exclusion in Australian society of women aged 25–44 years with no children. A total of 636 female Australian residents aged 25–44 years with no children provided qualitative data during a mixed-methods study conducted in 2014. A self-administered online questionnaire employed the critical incident technique to collect qualitative data on participants’ experiences in different domains of life. The data was analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Findings suggest pronatalism in Australian society influences the experiences of women with no children, manifesting in a continuum of connection within, exclusion within, and exclusion from, all domains of life, with nuanced experiences dependent upon the nature of women’s ‘deviance’ from pronatalism. Emergent themes elucidating the experiences of women with no children include: woman = mother; idealised childed; stereotyped, judged and invalidated childless; private issue on public trial; childless incapabilities; subordinated childless; hegemony of the childed; and exclusion from normative life. These findings emphasise the importance of challenging pronatalist norms of femininity and building a society in which women’s motherhood status is irrelevant to judgements of their character, value, completeness and success.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Health through Action on Social Exclusion (CHASE), School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, 3125, Australia

    Beth Turnbull, Melissa L. Graham & Ann R. Taket

Authors
  1. Beth Turnbull
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  2. Melissa L. Graham
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  3. Ann R. Taket
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Beth Turnbull.

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Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 1.

Table 1 Open questions and their position in the questionnaire
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Turnbull, B., Graham, M.L. & Taket, A.R. Pronatalism and Social Exclusion in Australian Society: Experiences of Women in their Reproductive Years with No Children. Gend. Issues 34, 333–354 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-016-9176-3

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