“It was something that was going to happen but then it didn’t”: the experiences of involuntarily childless men as they age

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648 (2013) “It was something that was going to happen but then it didn’t”: the experiences of involuntarily childless men as they age. In: Centre for Social Gerontology: Emerging and Established Researchers in Ageing, 4 December 2013, Keele University, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The global trend of a declining fertility rate and an increasingly ageing population has been extensively reported. Childless men are, compared to women, missing in gerontological, sociological, infertility, and psychological research. This paper describes a PhD study of the life experiences of older involuntarily childless men. In-depth biographical interviews were conducted countrywide with 14 men, aged between 49 and 82 years. The thematic analysis showed the complex intersections between men’s experience of involuntary childlessness and agency, structure, and relationships. The findings showed a range of diverse elements that affected the transitions related to ageing and involuntary childlessness: interpersonal skills, partner selection, timing of relationships, social networks, and the assumption of fertility. The importance of relationship quality, and the significance of being partnered, was highlighted in the profile of the social networks. Four of the men negotiated a form of ‘grandfatherhood’ role: Adopted, Latent, Surrogate, and Proxy.