Australian Institute of Family Studies

Bibliographies

The following bibliography has been compiled from the Australian Family & Society Abstracts database and other resources held in the Institute's library. Where available a link to the document on the Web is provided. Most items can be borrowed from the Institute's library via the inter library loan system. Online publications in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Having children

A child to call my own: a study of adopted women and their experience of motherhood.
Masso, P; Whitfield, V
Bondi, NSW: The Benevolent Society, 2003, 64p, figures

This research was conducted with 190 adopted women to explore how adoption is related to pregnancy, birth and motherhood, and how becoming a mother impacts on adopted women's views of adoption and their family relationships. This report covers the project methodology and information about the participants. Discussion of the findings is in two parts: adopted women with no children; and adopted women with children. The authors explore the women's desire to have or not have children, the effect of adoption on this decision, the impact on relationships, the decision to make contact, the experience of having children, and the changing importance of adoption.

 

Absent, recalcitrant (or is it oppressed?) men: getting to the root of Australian's fertility decline.
Cannold, Leslie
In: Population and society: issues, research, policy: Australian Population Association 12th Biennial Conference, 15-17 September 2004, Canberra. Canberra, ACT: ACSPRI Centre for Social Research, Australian National University, 2004, 13p, Online only (PDF 305K)

The high incidence of absent or recalcitrant men and family unfriendly workplaces are both central to an explanation of rising rates of 'circumstantial childlessness', this paper says. It reports on a study that featured in depth interviews with 35 women in their fertile years but without children in an attempt to explore their desires and intentions regarding motherhood. The paper considers the relative contributions of work family constraints and partnering difficulties to Australia's declining rates of fertility. The study sorted women into basic orientations towards motherhood: thwarted mothers, whose commitment is usually formed early and is strong and internally sourced; waiters and watchers, who are ambivalent and undecided about parenting; and women childless by relationship, who will not leave a relationship with a partner who refuses to have kids. The paper discusses the role of men in women's fertility decisions.

 

Australia's infertility crisis.
Allen, Kerrie
Australian Family v.26 no.2 Jul 2005: 24-35

What are the determinants of declining fertility in Australia? This article explores: biological determinants; environmental determinants, including the taxation system, housing costs, the availability of contraception and abortion, and the economy; social determinants, including underemployment, declining marriage rates, work, low income, social attitudes, feminism, education, societal views of motherhood, individualism, social change, cohabitation, homosexual unions, contraceptive mentality; and psychological determinants.

 

Bringing baby home.
Lacey, Denise
Threshold no.86 Mar 2006: 30-31

The birth of a child has an enormous effect on a relationship. This article explores ways that the transition to parenting can be made successfully. It summarises the key points in the Bringing Baby Home program and gives examples of activities from the program that marriage educators can explore with clients.

 

Children? No children? Effects of changing personal relationships on decisions about having children.
Qu, L; Weston, R; Kilmartin, C
Family Matters no.57 Spring - Summer 2000: 14-19, and Online (PDF 604K)

The current decline in family size in Australia has sparked considerable debate. Having children is usually seen as a matter of choice, but external circumstances may place constraints on this choice. What is the impact of relationship status on men's and women's intentions about whether or not to have children? And how do changes in relationship status affect those intentions? Based on data from the Australian Family Formation Project, the analysis in this paper focuses on intentions and outcomes regarding having children, covering nearly a decade. Three issues are examined: the prevalence of intentions to have children or remain childless among men and women when they were first contacted (1981); whether those who did not intend to have children were less likely to change their minds than those who intended to have children; and the extent to which relationship status and changes in relationship status over the next ten years influenced intentions and outcomes.

 

Comparative study of partners' fertility desires and intentions.
Tesfaghiorghis, Habtemariam
In: Australian Social Policy Conference 2005. Sydney, NSW: Social Policy Research Centre, 2005, 22p, Online only (PDF 228K)

Based on primary analysis of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey Waves 1-2 datasets, this paper examines partners' future fertility desires and intentions. The purposes of the paper are to: analyse women and partners' achieved fertility; undertake a comparative study of partners' future fertility desires, expectations and intentions by examining differences according to such variables as partners' age and number of children ever born; analyse whether women and partners fertility desires, expectations and intentions are congruent; estimate completed fertility rate and childlessness for women and partners with incomplete fertility; and analyse data on women and partners who intended to have children (or more children) by when they intended to have a child or the next child.

 

Dashed hopes? Fertility aspirations and expectations compared.
Weston, Ruth; Qu, Lixia
Family Matters no.69 Spring - Summer 2004: 10-17, and Online (PDF 464K)

Australia's fertility rate is currently below replacement level, with women having fewer than two children on average. In this article, which is part of the Fertility Decision Making Project, the authors question whether this trend reflects what people really want, and examine the number of children that people wanted to have and the number they expected. It was found that most men and women wanted two or more children, and that people on average wanted more children than they expected to have. Despite these general trends most individual men and women felt they already had or would have the number of children they wanted.

 

Do we need a normative account of the decision to parent?
Cannold, L
Melbourne, Vic: Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, 2002, 26p (CAPPE Working Paper 2002/4), Online (PDF 70K)

The research that forms the basis of this paper comprised extended interviews with 35 fertile childless / childfree Australian and North American women, aged 28 to 42. The author explains that, while most women endorsed and expanded on longstanding normative prescriptions for how a 'good' mother ought to feel and behave, they were at a loss to explain why a woman should decide to mother in the first place. For several women, this difficulty led them to conclude that a decision to have a child was 'irrational.' The author argues that applied philosophers bear some causal and moral responsibility for women's negative conclusions about the rationality of deciding to mother and are obligated to respond to these findings by beginning work on normative accounts of the decision to parent. Suggestions are made about what such accounts should include, and avoid, to ensure relevance to women and acceptability to both feminist and non-feminist philosophers.

 

Does child gender affect marital status?
Leigh, Andrew
Canberra, ACT: Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 2006, 28p, tables, figures (CEPR discussion paper no.526), Online (PDF 305K)

The author explored the relationship between child gender and decision to marry or divorce by pooling microdata from five Australian censuses. By contrast with the United States, he found no evidence that the gender of the first child has a significant impact on the decision to marry or divorce. However, among two-child families, parents with two children of the same sex are 1.7 percentage points less likely to be married than parents with a boy and a girl. Surveys of parental attitudes suggest that this effect is more likely to be driven by fathers than by mothers. This finding is not consistent with theories of preference for sons over daughters, differential costs, role models or complementary costs, but is consistent with a theory of parity preference. (Author abstract, edited)

 

Ex-nuptial children in Australia: an empirical analysis of nonmarital births.
de Vaus, David A
Journal of Family Studies v.11 no.1 Apr 2005: 36-44

The tight link between childbearing and being married has substantially unraveled in recent decades. This paper documents the extent to which this unraveling has occurred in Australia. It examines current levels of ex-nuptial births and the steep increase in such births. The link between ex-nuptial births on the one hand and maternal age and ethnicity on the other are explored. Accompanying the rise in ex-nuptial births has been a rise in loneparent families. The paper examines the extent to which this rise is due to parental separation and the extent to which it is due to unpartnered mothers having children. The paper also explores whether children born to cohabiting but unmarried parents experience a greater rate of parental separation than do those born to married parents. Data are also provided that suggest that the sharp rise in ex-nuptial births has taken place within a social context in which such births are increasingly accepted. (Journal abstract)

 

Having children: the actual versus the ideal and expected. new
Weston, Ruth; Qu, Lixia
In: Families Matter: 9th Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, Melbourne, February 2005 - proceedings. Melbourne, Vic: Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2005, 26p, Online only (Powerpoint presentation in PDF format 1.23MB)

The Fertility Decision Making Project involved computer assisted telephone interviews with a national random sample of 3201 people aged 20-39 years. It examined repondents' aspirations, expectations and ideals as related to the question of whether to have children, or not. This presentation examines the stability of aspirations and expectations from wave 1 to wave 2 (taking into account pregnancies or births during the interval), and assesses the strength of links between aspirations and expectations of each partner in couples.

 

Having children or not.
Weston, Ruth
Family Matters no.69 Spring - Summer 2004: 4-9, and Online (PDF 261K)

Australia's fertility rate is at an all time low and is well below replacement level. In this article the author summarises some of the arguments that have been put forward to explain what might shape people's hopes, expectations and family decisions. The factors explaining the fall in fertility include broad technological, structural, cultural and social changes, shifting pathways of friends, changes in personal financial circumstances and shifts in the beliefs and values of prospective parents, with one of the most fundamental being postponement of first births and consequent shortened childbearing years, and increased risk of having no children at all. These factors are complex and often mutually reinforcing. The Fertility Decision Making Project has been designed to examine ways in which some of the potential broad social forces may be translated into the decisions individuals make about having children and to enhance understanding of the reasons underlying fertility decisions of men and women.

 

Higher education, the bane of fertility? An investigation with the HILDA Survey.
Yu, Peng
In: HILDA Survey Research Conference 2005: papers. Parkville, Vic: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne, 2005, 54p, tables, Online (PDF 193K)

Using data from Wave 1 of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, this paper analyses the determinants of fertility, focusing on the role of education. The analysis first models total intended lifetime fertility as a function of education and other variables reflecting the opportunity costs and consumption elements of child rearing. The results show that education lowers total lifetime fertility. A second set of estimations concerns determinants of the expected future number of children, showing that people with higher education have higher fertility expectations. The juxtaposition of these two sets of results may indicated that education per se does not lower fertility expectations, but the more educated tend to defer their fertility and other constraints such as relationship breakdown may then result in fewer children. Other factors shown to influence family size were: household income, partnering, religion, and values concerning motherhood.

 

I think we should only have two: men and fertility decision-making.
Singleton, Andrew
Just Policy no.36 Jun 2005: 29-34

How are men implicated in fertility decision making in Australia? This article reports data from qualitative interviews with 14 Australian men. It discusses: men's issues in deciding about children, including deciding when to have the first child and how many children to have; how much say men have; and policy issues.

 

It's not for lack of wanting kids... A report on the Fertility Decision Making Project.
Weston, Ruth; Qu, Lixia; Parker, Robyn; Alexander, Michael
Melbourne, Vic: Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2004, 208p, tables, figures, (Research report no.11), and Online

Australia's fertility rate has fallen dramatically since the 1960s. It is now at an all-time low and well below replacement level. Unless this decline in fertility is stemmed, Australia will face not only an ageing population but also one whose numbers diminish. This report attempts to gain an understanding of the reasons for fertility trends, at both the macro and micro levels. It reports the findings of the Fertility Decision Making Project, commissioned by the Federal Office for Women, and provides indepth analyses of the aspirations, expectations and ideals of Australians as related to the question of whether to have children, or not. Particular attention is given to the ways in which views on having children vary according to age, gender, parenting status, relationship status, educational level, and employment status. The aspirations examined included the family size respondents considered to be personally ideal; whether or not they wanted a first or additional child in the future; whether or not those aged 22 or more had changed their family size preferences since they were 20 years old, and reasons for any change; the reasons leading some of the childless respondents to prefer not to have children; and views about the ideal age for the respondents themselves to start, or to have started, a family. Respondents were also asked to indicate how likely it was that they would have a child in the future. The report concludes that, in short, governments need to use a combination of approaches that is based on the recognition that the low fertility rate is not due to a 'lack of wanting children'.

 

Low fertility among women graduates.
Franklin, James; Tueno, Sarah Chee
People and Place v.12 no.1 2004: 38-45, figure, and Online (PDF 180K)

Australian women who are university graduates have fewer children than non-graduates. In most cases this appears to be the result of circumstantial pressures not preference. Long years of study fill the most fertile years of women students and new graduates need further time to establish their careers. The chance of medical infertility increases with age so, for some, this means that childbearing is not postponed but ruled out. Graduates who do make the transition from university to professional work find that working hours are long and that professional occupations are now both highly demanding and insecure. Women who take time off to care for young children must depend on one insecure income (their partner's) rather than two, and their return to work is uncertain. These difficulties of time, money and insecurity are compounded by problems in finding a suitable partner. They are magnified by the enduring tendency of women to marry up. Thus it can be more difficult for women graduates to find husbands than it is for women who are non-graduates. (Journal abstract)

 

Men's and women's reasons for not having children.
Weston, R; Qu, L
Family Matters no.58 Autumn 2001: 10-15, tables, and Online (PDF 457K)

Increasingly, men and women are deciding against starting families. The resulting ageing of the population has major implications for social policy. What reasons are people giving for not having children? Have the reasons changed since the early 1980s, and do these differ according to age? These issues are explored in this article drawing on data from two surveys conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies 15 years apart - the Australian Family Formation Study conducted in 1981 and the Australian Life Course Study conducted in 1996.

 

Oh no, we forgot to have children! How declining birth rates are reshaping our society.
Macken, Deirdre
Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2005, 224p

In this book the author explores the reasons why women have or don't have children. The author acknowledges that some women do not get to make a choice. However, she suggests that the same trends that provide women with choices - biological technology, economic freedom and wider roles in society - sometimes conspire to distract or discourage women from the idea of motherhood. In her words, 'One day some of them will turn around and say, oh no, I forgot to have children.' The author has aimed to cover the social, cultural, political, economic, historic and philosophical factors that influence a woman's choices.

 

Parity progression in Australia: what role does sex of existing children play?
Gray, Edith; Evans, Ann
Australian Journal of Social Issues v.40 no.4 Summer 2005: 505-520, tables, figure

In countries with low fertility regimes, researchers are focusing on what factors influence higher levels of parity and parity progression. This paper examines the impact of sex of existing children on parity progression in Australia. There are two dominant theoretical propositions about the effect of sex of existing children. Firstly, sex of existing children is more important in low-fertility societies than under high-fertility regimes in explaining parity progression, while secondly that sex of existing children is less important in societies with an egalitarian gender system. We model what effect sex of existing children has on progressing to a second and third child by analysing data from a nationally representative survey from Australia (Negotiating the Life Course), and consider the two theoretical positions. Other factors considered include continuity of relationship, educational background and religiosity. We find that sex of children has some impact on explaining parity progression in Australia, particularly for recent cohorts of childbearing women, but suggest that qualitative research would be useful in understanding why parents want both sons and daughters in Australia. (Journal abstract)

 

Partnering and fertility patterns: analysis of the HILDA Survey, Wave 1.
Fisher, K; Charnock, D
In: HILDA Conference 2003. Melbourne, Vic: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 2003, 38p, tables, Online only (PDF 1645K)

In 2000 the total fertility rate (TFR) was the lowest on Australian record at 1.7 children per woman. The HILDA dataset provides access to a broad range of socio-demographic, labour market and attitudinal variables that are not often found in one dataset, including the capacity to generate information relating to couples in a household. This paper highlights some important gaps in fertility research in Australia, and uses Wave 1 of the HILDA datasets to conduct a study of the association of selected structural factors with fertility expectations and partnering. The analysis examines the effects for both men and women and includes factors such as remoteness from cities and country of origin differences, which have long been associated with variations in fertility. Also discussed are age and trends; relationship formation and stability; education, work and financial security; delayed childbearing among higher educated; family size; childlessness.

 

Population, gender and reproductive choice: the motherhood questions: directions for policy.
Bryson, L; Mackinnon, A
Magill, SA: Hawke Institute, University of South Australia, 2000, 13p (Hawke Institute Working paper no.6) and Online (PDF 22K)

This paper provides a summary of key points to emerge from the research papers presented at the workshop 'Population, gender and reproductive choice: the motherhood questions', held in Adelaide in February 2000. The paper includes perspectives from a range of disciplines, including demography, economics, history, psychology and sociology. It sets out recommendations for policy on issues such as improving women's family formation choices, valuing children as a public good, improving child care arrangements, recognising the needs of carers, promoting education about and access to contraception, and promoting equitable and family friendly workplaces.

 

Returning to work following childbearing in Australia.
Baxter, Jennifer
In: Families Matter: 9th Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, Melbourne, February 2005 - proceedings. Melbourne, Vic: Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2005, 23p, tables, Online only

In Australia, women's employment is often disrupted to some extent by child bearing, with women taking time out of the labour force to care for young children, and then often returning to work part-time to better manage the competing priorities of work and family. This paper explores the relationship between childbearing and employment by examining the workforce transitions after childbearing, focusing on the return to full-time or part-time work. The work history collected as part of the Negotiating the Life Course Survey, along with the birth and relationship history and other key variables, makes it possible to construct a broad timeline of transitions back to work after childbearing, differentiating between transitions to full-time or part-time work. Discrete time event history analysis has been used to explore how the timing of return to work has changed in recent decades, and to identify characteristics of women likely to return to work earlier than others, or more likely to return to full-time rather than part-time work. (Author abstract)

 

The changing living arrangements of children, 1946-2001.
de Vaus, David A; Gray, Matthew
Journal of Family Studies v.10 no.1 Apr 2004: 9-19, tables, figures

Widespread social changes over the last half century have been reflected in changes in family forms. These changes have resulted in increased family diversity which, in turn, is reflected in the more diverse living arrangements experienced by children as they grow up. This paper is the first to provide reliable national estimates of the extent to which the living arrangements of Australian children have changed. Using relationship and fertility histories from the nationally representative Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia household panel survey (HILDA), the analysis describes the changing patterns of living arrangements of 12,441 children between 1946-2001. Its methodology allows the examination of the different living arrangements experienced by children during the first 15 years of life and avoids the static analysis that relies on point-in-time estimates. Furthermore, unlike analysis that relies on official birth and divorce statistics, the present analysis is able to identify family changes experienced by children as a result of parental separation. Thus, it takes into account transitions related to parental cohabitation as well as marriage. (Journal abstract)

 

The high cost of not having children.
Kerin, Tony
Threshold no.86 Mar 2006: 38-39

What are some of the factors involved in the decisions of fertile people to have or not have children? This article considers financial costs, lifestyle, stress, emotional and psychological decision making, grandparenting, and the cost of not having children.

 

The impact of young motherhood on education, employment and marriage.
Bradbury, Bruce
Sydney, NSW: Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, 2006, 34p, tables, figures (Discussion paper no.148), Online (PDF 322K)

Australian women who have their first childbirth when young have significantly poorer socio economic outcomes than women who delay child rearing, and also have comparatively negative partnering outcomes. Data on young women from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health are analysed in this paper to investigate outcomes for young mothers.

 

The impact on Australian fertility of wanting one of each.
Kippen, Rebecca; Gray, Edith; Evans, Ann
People and Place v.13 no.2 2005: 12-20, figures

This paper examines the extent to which the sex of first, second and subsequent births influences parents' decisions to have another child. The key findings are: a) the sex of the first born in Australia has no influence on the decision of mothers to have a second child, b) that mothers with two children of the same sex are 25 per cent more likely to have a third child than are mothers with a boy and a girl, and c) mothers with three children of the same sex are more likely to have a fourth birth than mothers whose three children include both sexes. (Journal abstract)

 

Undervalued, expensive and difficult: young women talk about motherhood.
Maher, JaneMaree
Youth Studies Australia v.24 no.2 Jun 2005: 11-16

There has been considerable public debate in Australia around falling fertility rates; however, the voices of young women have not been prominent in these debates. JaneMaree Maher presents 16 young women's views of motherhood. Their positive views about the value to society of motherhood sit alongside pragmatic concerns about managing mothering and other life aspirations. Their thinking, especially in regard to the social and economic costs of motherhood, is influenced by observations of contemporary women 'doing' motherhood. (Journal abstract)

 

What women (and men) want: births, policies and choices: summary report.
Maher, JaneMaree; Dever, Maryanne; Curtin, Jennifer; Singleton, Andrew
Melbourne, Vic: School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, 2004, 50p, Online

The Families, Fertility and the Future study aimed to examine how women and men determine whether or not to have children and if so, their number and timing; understand how changing public policies, family obligations, gender roles and labour market patterns inform these decisions; and explore reasons behind falling fertility rates. Interviews were held during 2002 and 2003 with 114 Victorian women and men in order to provide a snapshot of how individuals assess the costs and benefits of having children and how women's reproductive choices, in particular, are negotiated in relation to career, personal and relationship goals.

 

Wonder woman: the myth of 'having it all'.
Haussegger, Virginia
Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2005, 310p

Can today's women really 'have it all', or have they been duped? When did the superwomen of the 1980s become the wondering women of the new millennium? And where have all of their achievements left them? These questions are posed by a journalist who was frustrated and angry about her own childlessness and wrote an opinion piece for a major metropolitan newspaper. By speaking about her own personal pain and confusion, she set off a debate about a number of issues, including whether feminism had failed women, where it had left them when it came to having children, and whether 'career women' should stop complaining about something that was their choice. The author describes how the choices women make in the twenties, thirties and forties about career, love, sex, fertility and motherhood shape and define them, and society as a whole.

 

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