Lack of recognition an influential factor for some women who decide not to have children

In an atmosphere of increasing public concern over Australia's falling national birthrate, a Monash University study has found lack of recognition of the contribution mothers make to society is an influential factor for some women who decide not to have children.

Most of the women interviewed felt motherhood was viewed quite ambivalently by the general community, Dr Maryanne Dever and a research team from Monash's School of Political and Social Inquiry found. The other team members were Dr JaneMaree Maher, Dr Jennifer Curtin, and Dr Andrew Singleton.

"While most women indicated they felt it was a positive and important job, even if they were not planning to become mothers, they recognised that mothers were not accorded a high status position and their social contribution was not always valued," team leader Dr Dever said. "For women with children, this often meant they valued their work as a crucial aspect of their identity. For women choosing not to have children, this lack of support was often mentioned in how they had decided motherhood was not for them."

The current national birthrate in Australia is about 1.75 children per woman, a trend reflecting patterns throughout the developed world, compared to an ideal 'replacement' level of 2.1 children per woman.

The Families, Fertility and the Future: Hearing the Voice of Australians study was based on interviews with more than 100 men and women in metro, regional and rural Victoria living in partnerships and alone, with children or without. Other key findings of the study included:

• Women choosing not to have children did not reflect the common image of career-driven high achievers or women who could not find partners, and women with more than three children featured strongly among those with significant and on-going attachments to the labour market.
• Policies and entitlements were not generally the factor influencing first birth timing or decisions about having children, but were particularly important to women choosing to have more than one child.
• A significant number of women believed maternity leave to be important as a way of providing additional financial support and maintaining their connection with the labour market.
• The centrality of flexible, available and satisfactory working conditions was identified by women with three or more children as crucial to their choices to go on having children.
• Women who were mothers did not offer any criticism of women who decided not to have children, while women without children were often genuinely appreciative of mothers and the work they did.

Dr JaneMaree Maher said the findings suggest that narrow policy initiatives seeking to reward fertility will not be enough to encourage and support childbearing. "If governments are serious about addressing fertility levels, then policy needs to be coordinated across the areas of employment, health and family and it needs to involve support services and community support," Dr Maher said.

http://www.monash.edu.au/