Content uploaded by Nick Parr
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Nick Parr on Aug 08, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
Nick Parr
Received: 26 March 2008 / Accepted: 21 April 2009
ÓSpringer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract This paper examines childlessness in later adult life among males in
Australia. The data are from 1,610 males aged 45–59 interviewed in 2001 for Wave
1 of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, a
large-scale, nationwide, longitudinal survey of the household population. Staged
logistic regression models are used to identify the early lifecourse antecedents of a
man being childless in later life and the mediating effects of work-related variables
and duration of union. The results show that the father’s and mother’s occupations,
the level and type of education, and birthplace are important early lifecourse
antecedents of whether a man is childless in later life. The lengths of time a man has
been in married and cohabiting and his current occupation are found shown to have
significant relationships with whether he is childless.
Keywords Childlessness Fertility Men Fatherhood Australia
Family background Work Occupation Marital status
Introduction
With its skewed sex ratio, high rates of childlessness among men are likely to have
been a feature of much of Australia’s demographic history since the first settlement
of Europeans in 1788 (McDonald 1974; Borrie 1993). Since the 1960s the patterns
of fertility and family formation in Australia have, broadly speaking, followed those
associated with progression through the ‘Second Demographic Transition’ (Lest-
haeghe 1995; Van de Kaa 1997; Carmichael 1998). The increase in childlessness
among men during this transition may be more marked than among women, because
N. Parr (&)
Department of Business, Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University, Sydney,
Australia
e-mail: Nick.Parr@mq.edu.au
123
Popul Res Policy Rev
DOI 10.1007/s11113-009-9142-9
the men who re-enter the marriage market following marital break-ups are more
likely than the women to repartner. Thus more never married and childless men than
never married and childless women may be displaced from mating and having hence
from having children (Coleman 2000; Merlo and Rowland 2000; Birrell et al. 2004;
Rowland 2007).
As in other Western Industrialised Countries, in Australia at all ages the
prevalence of childlessness appears to be higher among men than among women
(Coleman 2000;Gray2002). However, whilst differentials in childlessness among
women have been studied extensively (Merlo and Rowland 2000; Carmichael and
McDonald 2003; Parr 2005), relatively little attention has been paid to the patterns
among men. Koropeckyj-Cox and Call’s (2007) incorporation of data from a 1992
survey conducted in South Australia into their cross-national comparisons of
childlessness among men aged over 65 is a rare example. Most of the studies of
childlessness among Australian men appear to be restricted to small scale surveys of
men’s and women’s reasons for not having children (Weston and Qu 2001;
Carmichael and Whittaker 2007a). An exception is the Australian Institute of
Family Studies’ Fertility Decision Making Project which obtained responses from
1,251 men aged 20–39 years (Weston et al. 2004).The apparent neglect of men’s
childlessness may reflect the relative shortage of data on men’s fertility (Australian
census questions on numbers of children are designed to be answered only by
women), the difficulties posed by the incompleteness and inaccuracy of the
reporting of paternity and by the longer period of the male reproductive function,
and a prevailing belief that since the economic and lifestyle opportunity costs of
entry into fatherhood are much less marked than those of entry into motherhood it is
more pertinent to analyse fertility using mothers’ characteristics (Coleman 2000;
Gray 2002). With more widespread and more accurate DNA paternity testing in
recent years, including testing without the knowledge of the mother, the degree of
inaccuracy of the measurement of male childlessness resulting from incomplete or
inaccurate reporting of paternity may have reduced (Gilding 2005; Gilding and
Turney 2006).
This study seeks to address a gap in the literature on childlessness among men,
particularly the shortage of literature on differentials in childlessness in contem-
porary Australia. It should be of wider international interest in view of the dearth of
such studies for other countries. It focuses on the early lifecourse antecedents of
childlessness and the roles of the attainment of socioeconomic status and
partnership duration as mediators of the effects of these variables.
Theoretical Background
Childlessness by Choice and Childlessness by Circumstance
Some childless men do not have (or their partners do not have) the biological
capacity to procreate (the ‘involuntarily childless’), whilst others have such a
capacity (the ‘voluntarily childless’). Some longstanding childlessness may be the
legacy of a sequence involving both episodes of voluntary childlessness and
N. Parr
123
episodes of involuntary childlessness. In parallel to Cannold’s (2004) typology of
childless women, ‘voluntarily childless’ men may be subdivided into those who are
‘childless by choice’ (that is they have a long-held commitment to avoiding
fatherhood) and those who are ‘childless by circumstance’. The latter group includes
men whose desires for fatherhood are thwarted by an inability to form or to maintain
relationships, men who are thwarted from becoming fathers by partners who are
unwilling to have children with them, and men who are ambivalent to or undecided
about entering fatherhood. Not all men whose preference would have been to
choose childlessness avoid becoming fathers. The classification of the lifetime
childlessness of some men may be complicated by the explanation of their
remaining childless differing between different episodes of their life history, as their
attitudes to the desirability of entering fatherhood change (Carmichael and
Whittaker 2007a).
Factors Affecting Involuntary Childlessness Among Men
Infecundity (defined as the failure of a couple to achieve a pregnancy after a year of
having regular unprotected sexual intercourse) is estimated to affect roughly 12% of
couples in Australia, with roughly one in five cases being the result solely of male
problems (McLachlan 2007). Male infecundity or reduced fecundity may involve
sperm production or transport problems, the development of sperm antibodies,
sexual problems, or hormonal problems. Some of these problems are manageable
with medications, bypass procedures, or surgery, and the range and efficacy of the
available practices has improved considerably over time (McLachlan and De
Kretser 2001; McLachlan et al. 2005). Assisted reproductive technologies, such as
In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) techniques, may be recommended to some couples.
However, in Australia, despite government funded subsidies of the direct treatment
costs, the costs are substantial (Chambers et al. 2006). Identified causes of male
infecundity, as well as genetic and environmental causes, include vasectomies,
sexually transmitted and certain other infections, testicular and certain other
cancers, cancer treatments, and lifestyle factors, such as stress, substance abuse,
smoking, obesity and nutritional deficiencies (UMMC 2006). Increasing age may
also be associated with a decline in male fecundity.
There appears to be a dearth of studies of the variation in the prevalence of the
infecundity either for males or for couples by male socioeconomic and demographic
characteristics in Australia. However, the higher prevalence among the more
socioeconomically disadvantaged sections of Australia’s male population, of
smoking, obesity and diabetes, together with their reduced capacity to afford
expensive interventions such as IVF, may provide some cause to expect higher rates
of involuntary infecundity among these groups (ABS 2006a,2008a). The fertility of
indigenous Australians is above the national average (ABS 2007). However, the
particularly high prevalence of many of the risk factors for infecundity among
indigenous males, particularly smoking, high risk drinking, use of illicit substances,
poor nutrition, obesity, diabetes, psychological distress, and sexually transmitted
infections, may provide reason to expect there also to be a higher prevalence of male
infecundity in this section of the population (Miller et al. 2001; AIHW 2008).
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
The Implications of Entry into Fatherhood for Men
A choice not to have children may reflect the disincentives to having children which
stem from the prospective economic and time use opportunity costs to both the
prospective parents. However, in Australia such costs resulting from entry into
fatherhood generally remain considerably less than those which result from entry
into motherhood. In marked contrast to the pattern for women, children have been
found to have virtually no effect on Australian men’s wage rates (Breusch and Gray
2004a,b). Children also affect men’s leave-taking less than they affect women’s. In
Australia men who take paid or unpaid paternity leave are still very much in the
minority, and the durations of paternity leave taken tend to be shorter than those of
maternity leave (ABS 2006b; Whitehouse et al. 2006). A broadly similar pattern has
been observed even in Norway, a country renowned internationally for its
progressive stance on gender equity issues (Lappegard 2008). However, in Australia
many fathers use some of their annual or other types of leave entitlements to help
look after young children (Whitehouse et al. 2006). The underutilisation of paternity
leave may reflect that, even though publicly they may pay lip-service to it,
colleagues and senior management are privately and effectively unsupportive of
men taking such leave (Hand and Lewis 2002). Cultural stereotypes about parental
roles may also deter men from requesting such leave (Broderick 2008).
The effect of children on men’s time use remains smaller than their effect on
women’s time use, but some change over time has been apparent (Craig 2005).
Australian men still on average undertake considerably less domestic work and
childcare than Australian women, and, whilst Australian men’s share of domestic
work appears higher relative to the shares undertaken by men in most Western
European countries, it appears the additional domestic work and parental childcare
resulting from children falls heavily on Australian females (ABS 1997a; Craig and
Bittman 2004; European Commission 2004). The major changes to men’s time use
resulting from the arrival of the first child are a reduced time for sleeping and for
other forms of personal care (eating, drinking, washing etc.) and a reduced time for
recreation (Craig and Bittman 2004; Craig 2005,2006). According to Carmichael
and Whittaker (2007a), aversion to lifestyle change features prominently in
Australian childless men’s (and women’s) rationalisations of their being childless.
The arrival of children may also lead to a loss of attention from the partner and a
disruption to the sex life, and this too may deter some men from fatherhood
(Williamson et al. 2008). As in other countries, in Australia there has been some
convergence in gender roles within the family over time, with fathers on average
becoming more involved in bringing up children (Juby and Le Bourdais 1998;
Bianchi 2000; Baxter 2002; McLanahan 2004). McLanahan (2004) shows that in the
United States male involvement in parenting increased among college graduates
somewhat earlier than it did among non-college graduates, a pattern which is to be
expected in Australia. Also, as Kaufman and Uhlenberg (2000) have shown for the
United States, it is likely Australian men’s responses to the arrival of children have
become more heterogenous, with there being not only the many who continue to
follow the ‘traditional’ pattern of increasing their work time and earnings following
the arrival of a child but also a growing number who sacrifice work effort in order to
N. Parr
123
be more involved in bringing up the child. It is likely that women’s expectations of
the assistance a man will provide with domestic and childcare work affect the
selection and retention of men into unions and whether they are willing to have
children with them, and that such expectations have increased over time (Cannold
2004; Carmichael and Whittaker 2007a). However the greater opportunities to
participate in childrearing and the greater expectations of their involvement may not
necessarily be attracting Australian men to fatherhood: some men are deterred from
fatherhood if a considerable participation in domestic and childcare work is to
accompany it. According to Carmichael and Whittaker (2007b) incompatibility
between partners’ attitudes to domestic and childcare work represents a significant
impediment to partnership formation and endurance in contemporary Australia.
From the above discussion it can be concluded that, whilst the changes to the
men’s lives from the arrival of children are not entirely negligible, they still tend to
be much less marked than the changes to the lives of their female partners. Thus the
selectivity of partnering is likely to be an important factor for the explanation of
men’s childlessness.
Partnership History and Entry into Fatherhood
The formation, duration, and stability of partnerships are obviously important
circumstances for the entry to fatherhood. Unsurprisingly, Australian men who have
married or cohabited have been found to be far less likely to be childless than those
who have not done so (Koropeckyj-Cox and Call 2007). Socioeconomic status
appears to be an important determinant of men’s ability to form and maintain
partnerships. Australian men with higher incomes have been found to be far more
likely to be partnered than their counterparts with lower incomes, with the
difference in rates of being married being greater than that in rates of cohabiting
whilst unmarried (Birrell et al. 2004). Birrell et al. argue this reflects not only the
greater capacity of men with higher incomes to fulfill the role of main provider but
also, increasingly, their greater capacity to contribute on an equal basis to
collaborative partnerships, a lifestyle which has become more prevalent over time.
Men whose marriages are ended by divorce or separation are slightly more likely
to be childless than those whose unions remain intact, but are still much less likely
to be childless than men who never enter unions. The somewhat higher rates of
childlessness among formerly married men would reflect they and their former
partners having refrained from having children in view of the instability of their
relationship and the prospective difficulties which single parenthood would present,
as well as the time spent unpartnered following the marital break-up (Carmichael
and Whittaker 2007a). Relationship break-up is likely to lead to a reduced level of
contact between father and children. In the past Australian men were relatively
unlikely to gain custody of children following a separation, although since 2006
changes to family law have placed a greater emphasis on shared parenting and
parental responsibility (Smyth et al. 2008). They also face a rigorous enforcement
of child support and maintenance payments to children and former partners (Birrell
et al. 2004). Bracher et al. (1993) show the husband’s previous marital status,
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
religion and employment to be factors affecting the risk of marital dissolution in
Australia.
Men’s Work and Childlessness
Even though the changes in men’s work which result from entry into fatherhood
tend to be relatively minor, there may still be considerable variation in men’s
propensities to be childless between occupations of differing status and income.
This is because a man’s inclination and ability to attract and retain a partner
(whether as a ‘traditional’ breadwinner or within a more egalitarian, collaborative
partnership), and the education, income, wealth and attitudes of the partner he
selects (and is selected by) may reflect the status, income, and opportunities for
meeting prospective partners he derives from his employment (Bracher et al. 1993;
Birrell et al. 2004; Carmichael and Whittaker 2007b). His financial circumstances
(along with his partner’s) affect the couple’s ability to afford to support a child in
numerous ways. The costs of children include not only the ability to cover the
additional living costs resulting from the child but also the reduced income of
(usually) the female partner which results from withdrawal from the labour force to
look after a child, taking unpaid parental leave, or a change to part-time work or to
another occupation which is more compatible with childrearing (Chapman et al.
2001; Percival and Harding 2002; Breusch and Gray 2004a; Henman et al. 2007;
Parr et al. 2007; Baxter 2008). Where the costs of having children include the costs
of undergoing IVF these substantial costs are more affordable by men with higher
incomes and wealth (Chambers et al. 2006). The man’s income also contributes to
the determination of the value of some of the government benefits which may be
claimed by parents, including Family Tax Benefit Part A (a means-tested benefit
paid to the parents of children), childcare benefit, and, in some cases, it may be that
costs of childcare are tax-deductible from the man’s salary.
For some men the circumstances of their work may make it difficult to commit to
fatherhood. According to Hand and Lewis (2002) in contemporary Australia men
see being accessible to children as an important part of fatherhood which the
circumstances of work may impede. Cases where the demands of work may
severely limit time with their children may have become more common following
the considerable increases in the proportion of employees who work long hours (i.e.
over 48 h per week) during the 1980s and early 1990s (Gray et al. 2004). That said,
despite the perceived conflicts between work and family for some men, childless-
ness may not necessarily be advantageous to a man’s career: some men see a
continuing stigma attached to childlessness being disadvantageous to their careers
(Blake 1979).
Theoretical Linkages Between Men’s Early Lifecourse Variables and their
Childlessness in Later Life
Early lifecourse variables, that is those variables whose values are typically
determined either at birth or during a person’s childhood, have been shown to have
significant predictive power for identifying which women will be childless in later
N. Parr
123
life, in part because they affect socioeconomic attainment (Parr 2005). Early
lifecourse variables, including the socioeconomic status of a man’s family of origin,
his number of siblings, and his type of schooling, have also been shown to have
substantial effects on men’s attainment of education, income and wealth in later life
(Parr 2006). However the effects of such attainment on men’s fertility may operate
very differently to those for women. For men the ability to attract and retain a
partner and the ability to contribute to the support of children all may be enhanced
by higher socioeconomic status whilst the opportunity costs of children, particularly
relating to income, occupational status, and time use, tend to be less. A man’s
attitudes to and expectations of fatherhood may reflect, to some extent, his own
experiences in childhood: for some men fears of being unsuitable for parenting or of
being able to maintain an enduring relationship may stem from the example given
by one or both their parents (Weston and Qu 2001; Carmichael and Whittaker
2007a,b). The country of birth may affect a man’s likelihood of childlessness in
later life not only because the socioeconomic circumstances of migrant groups differ
considerably but also by conditioning his attitudes to the importance of having sons
and daughters and expectations of the levels and types of involvement he should
have in their upbringing. Moreover, the act of migration may disrupt unions and the
couple’s financial circumstances (Abbasi-Shavazi and McDonald 2000).
Research Aims, Questions and Hypotheses
The principal aim of this paper is to examine the interrelationships between early
lifecourse variables and childlessness in later life among Australian men. Particular
attention is paid to the question of whether higher socioeconomic status earlier in
the lifecourse is associated with a reduced likelihood of childlessness in later life.
The questions of whether the size of the family of origin and the intactness of the
parental union affect the likelihood of childlessness in later life are also examined.
So too are differences in childlessness among men from different ethnic groups. In
view of the preceding discussions of the importance of men’s work and partnership
histories as determinants of their fertility, the roles of these variables as mediators of
the effects of the early lifecourse variables are also examined.
Data
The data are from Wave 1 of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in
Australia (HILDA) survey, a large-scale, nationwide, longitudinal survey of the
household population of Australia conducted in 2001 by the Australian Common-
wealth Government’s Department of Family and Community Services. A multi-
stage, cluster sample design was used, and 13,969 men and women from 7,682
households and 488 census collection districts, which were stratified by State or
Territory and metropolitan area or non-metropolitan area, were interviewed
successfully. Some remote areas of the country were not sampled. Data were
collected on family formation and background, employment and unemployment
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
history and status, and income. The household response rate was 66% (Watson and
Wooden 2002). The analysis was restricted to 1,610 males aged 45–59 last birthday
(the 1941–1956 birth cohort). The fathering of children by men in this age range or
above is rare in Australia; only 3.9% of the fathers of births in 2006 were aged over
45 and only 0.1% were aged over 60 (ABS 2007).
Method and Measures
Men who were childless were identified from the answers to a question on ‘‘how
many children have you ever fathered?’’ Most of the childless men expect to remain
so: 79.8% of those aged 45–55 (respondents aged over 56 were not asked this
question) rate their likelihood (on a 0–10 scale) of fathering a child in the future to
be zero and only a small minority (4.3%) consider it more likely than not they will
do so. It is also evident that most of the childless men aged 45–55 are ‘voluntarily
childless’ at this age: 68.1% said they definitely do not want a child in the future and
only 14.7% expressed their desire for a child as 6 or above on a 0–10 scale.
However the lack of desire for children of most of these childless men may be
affected by the age-related difficulties that raising children would present, and a
reshaping of fertility desires based on the current reality: it is quite possible their
desires for children may have been different when they were younger. It is also
possible some of the childless men who expressed a desire for children when
interviewed had different aspirations when younger.
Since the response variable was binary, logistic regression was used. The
functional form of the model is:
Log pi=1pi
ðÞðÞ¼b0þb1Xi
where p
i
is the expected proportion of men who are childless, X
i
is a vector of
covariates measures for respondent i and b
0
and b
1
are parameters to be estimated.
Adopting a lifecourse perspective, the approach used initially estimate the effects
on a man’s likelihood of being childless in later life of those variables whose values
are typically determined early in the lifecourse; the status of the father’s occupation,
the mother’s type of occupation, the number of siblings, the level and type of
education, country of birth, Aboriginality and age (Model 1) (Berrington and
Diamond 1999; Hagestad and Call 2007). The extent to which the effects of the
early lifecourse variables are mediated by a man’s attainment of occupational status
and income, and maintenance of employment in later life are then assessed by
adding these variables to the model (Model 2). Finally the extent to which variation
in the time a man has spent in married unions and the time he has spent in unmarried
cohabitation can account for the effects is assessed by adding these variables
(Model 3).
The choice of the measures of the size and socioeconomic status of a man’s
family of origin and his level and type of education was guided by their established
links with a man’s socioeconomic attainment later in life (Parr 2006). Parental
occupations, both of which were measured when the respondent was aged 14, were
classified according to the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations
N. Parr
123
(ASCO) (ABS 1997b). ASCO categorises occupations according to the level of
education and previous experience usually required, the depth and breadth of skills
required, and the level of autonomy which may be required to perform the required
tasks. For both the respondent’s own occupation and for his father’s occupation the
major occupational groups were combined into ‘high status’ (the ‘managerial or
administrative’, ‘professional’ and ‘associate professional’ groups combined),
‘middle status’ (the ‘trades or related’, ‘advanced clerical and service’ and
‘intermediate clerical, sales and service’ groups combined), and ‘low status’ (the
‘intermediate production or transport’, ‘elementary clerical, sales or service’ and
‘labourers or related’ groups combined), after exploratory investigations showed the
differences in the percentages who were childless within these broader categories to
be small. The mother’s occupation was recoded into ‘managerial and administra-
tive’, ‘professional’ and ‘other’ after exploratory investigations showed differences
in the percentages who are childless between the major occupational groups other
than these two to be small. It may be noted that 68% of the fathers with ‘managerial
or administrative occupations’ (34% of the fathers in ‘high status’ occupations) and
89% of the mothers with occupations in ‘managerial or administrative occupations’
were ‘farmers or farm managers’, reflecting the high fertility of farmers in the past.
These percentages of mothers and fathers with occupations who were farmers of
farm managers is much higher than the percentage of the respondents who are
‘farmers or farm managers’ (10.4% of men in ‘high status’ occupations are ‘farmers
or farm managers’).
The highest level of education was recoded into a binary indicator of whether or
not the respondent had a post-school qualification, after exploratory analysis showed
rates of childlessness differ little between men with differing types of post-school
qualifications, and that differences among those without post-school qualifications
by the highest level of schooling completed also were small. Overseas countries of
birth were grouped into those in which English is the most widely-spoken language
(MES) and those in which other languages are more widely-spoken (NES).
As argued earlier, men’s work, particularly their work over the age ranges when
partnership formation and entry to fatherhood are most likely to occur, is likely to be
an important determinant of their fertility. The HILDA survey did not collect
retrospective data on men’s work over these age ranges. However income for the
financial year prior to the survey and the current occupation were available. These
were entered into Models 2 and 3 in the belief that these were the best available
proxy measures for income and occupation prior to and during the main
reproductive ages and, hence, the best available counters to the bias of coefficients
which would result from their omission from the models. An array of functional
forms for the effect of gross annual income were tried, in particular linear, quadratic
and logarithmic functions and a binary dichotomisation (over A$45,000, below
A$45,000). However, after the relationships of the other functional forms with the
response variable proved non-significant, the simpler linear form was adopted. The
time spent in employment, expressed as a percentage of the sum of the times spent
either in employment (whether full-time or part-time), unemployed but actively
seeking work, and not in the labour force, was entered to test whether a history of
not being employed increased a man’s likelihood of being childless. It may be noted
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
that for some men, especially those towards the older end of the age range
considered, retirement may also have affected the value of this variable.
Following exploratory investigations, both linear and quadratic terms were
entered for both the number of years married and the number of years in unmarried
cohabitation. Univariate differences in the rate of male childlessness by the
explanatory variables are presented in Table 1and the coefficients of the three
multivariate logistic regression models in Table 2.
Results
Just over one in eight (12.8%) of men aged 45–59 are childless (Table 1). The
percentage of men who are childless is higher than the percentage of women of the
same age (9.5%). This would reflect fatherhood being more likely than motherhood
to be postponed to later ages and the greater likelihood of paternity being
unrecognised (for example if the pregnancy was not known about) or unreported. It
would also reflect the effect on the marriage (and partnering) market of there being
slightly more males than females in Australia’s population in the age groups
considered, a legacy of the predominantly male immigration of the post World War
II period (ABS 2008b). A third factor is that repartnering following the break-up of
a union is slightly more common for men than for women: 18.4% of 45–59 year old
men had married more than once compared to 17.7% of women. Consequently a
slightly larger number of never married men than never married women may have
been displaced by the repartnering from forming unions, and hence from entering
parenthood.
The results show that a man’s likelihood of being childless in later life is
significantly affected by his family background, his level and type of education and
by his birthplace. Table 1shows a man with a father in a ‘middle status’ occupation
is more likely to be childless than a man with a father in a ‘high status’ occupation,
and also is more likely to be childless than a man with a father in a ‘low status’
occupation. The small number of men whose fathers had no recorded occupations
are the most likely to be childless. Model 1 in Table 2shows that significant effects
of father’s occupation remain after controlling for a range of other early lifecourse
occupations. Disaggregation of the childless into ‘voluntary’ (those whose desire for
a child was 5 or less on a 0–10 scale) and ‘involuntary’ (6 or more) components
showed that a significant effect of father’s occupation is evident for both
components.
Just over half the men reported their mother had no occupation (Table 1). Men
whose mothers had no occupation are only slightly less likely to be childless than
those whose mothers had occupations. The most striking feature of the variation by
mother’s occupation is the wide divergence in rates of childlessness between the
two major groups of maternal occupation with the highest status: compared to those
whose mother were without an occupation, men who had a mother in a ‘managerial
or administrative’ occupation are significantly less likely to be childless, whilst men
who had a mother in a ‘professional’ occupation are significantly more likely to be
so. Model 1 in Table 2shows that these differences remain significant after
N. Parr
123
Table 1 Percentage of men aged 45–59 who are childless by background characteristics: HILDA Wave
1 for Australia 2001
Percentage childless N
Father’s occupation at age 14
High status
a
9.4 668
Middle status
b
17.4 472
Low status
c
10.9 412
No occupation 27.6 58
Mother’s occupation at age 14
Managerial 1.8 56
Professional 17.7 130
Other occupation 13.2 857
No occupation 12.2 567
Parent absent or deceased at age 14
Yes 17.5 120
No 12.4 1,490
Number of siblings
0 14.1 78
1 14.8 338
2 13.4 373
3 12.8 298
4?10.5 515
Level of education
Has post-school qualification
d
11.6 585
Does not have post school qualification 14.9 1,025
Type of school attended
Government 12.4 1,254
Catholic 13.3 211
Other non-government and other 15.1 139
Country of birth
Main English-Speaking overseas
e
15.4 228
Non-English-Speaking overseas 9.2 284
Australia 13.2 1,109
Aboriginality
Indigenous 17.7 17
Not indigenous 12.7 1,593
Age
45–49 12.2 442
50–54 14.6 608
55–59 11.3 560
Current occupation
High status
a
9.4 652
Middle status
b
10.7 317
Low status
c
13.1 297
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
controlling for the other early lifecourse variables. Since almost all the mothers in
‘managerial or administrative’ occupations were ‘farmers or farm managers’, a rural
upbringing may explain their sons’ low rate of childlessness. The support for
suggestions, based on qualitative evidence, that men who experienced parental
marital break-up may as a result be more likely to avoid the commitment of
fatherhood is weak, with the effect of a parent being absent from home or deceased
being small and not significant after controlling for parental occupations and the
other early lifecourse variables. As Carmichael and Whittaker (2007b) suggest, such
experiences may stiffen the resolve of some to become successful family men. Men
who had relatively small numbers of siblings when growing up have slightly higher
rates of childlessness than men with larger numbers of siblings. However, despite its
well-established relationship with educational attainment and wealth, the number of
siblings a man grew up with does not have a significant effect of childlessness, after
other variables are controlled for (Marks 2006; Parr 2006).
There are strong effects for the level and type of education. Men with post-school
qualifications are significantly less likely to be childless than men without such
qualifications, with this effect being due more to the difference in ‘voluntary’
childlessness. The size of this effect may reflect those included in the analysis being
from cohorts which reached the usual ages for tertiary education before the era of
mass higher education, with the tertiary-educated being an elite few (Karmel 1993).
Table 1 continued
Percentage childless N
None 20.9 344
Gross annual income (A$)
Under 45K 14.2 1,072
Over 45K 9.8 538
Number of years married
0 71.6 162
0\and \10 15.6 199
10Band \20 7.4 363
20Band \30 4.6 540
30 or above 2.0 346
Number of years cohabiting
0 14.2 1,108
0\and \1 13.9 122
1 or above 8.4 380
Total 12.8 1,610
a
Managerial or administrative, professional or associate professional
b
Trades or related, advanced clerical and service and intermediate clerical, sales and service
c
Intermediate production or transport, elementary clerical, sales or service and labourers or related
d
Bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, doctorate, diploma, certificate, teaching qualification or nursing
qualification
e
United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, USA or New Zealand
N. Parr
123
Table 2 Logistic regression models of whether a man aged 45–59 is childless: HILDA Wave 1 data for
Australia 2001
Variable Model 1 (n =1,596) Model 2 (n =1,539) Model 3 (n =1,539)
bSE(b)bSE(b)bSE(b)
Father’s occupation
High status
a
-1.28*** 0.41 -1.29*** 0.43 -1.23** 0.55
Middle status
b
-0.52 0.40 -0.53 0.42 -0.50 0.54
Low status
c
-1.05*** 0.41 -1.15*** 0.42 -1.11** 0.54
No occupation (reference) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Mother’s occupation
Managerial -1.91* 1.02 -1.73* 1.03 -1.81 1.11
Professional 0.48* 0.28 0.64** 0.29 0.80** 0.36
Other occupation 0.05 0.18 0.14 0.18 0.16 0.22
No occupation (reference) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Parent absent or deceased
Yes 0.17 0.31 0.14 0.32 0.15 0.39
No (reference) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Number of siblings -0.02 0.04 -0.03 0.04 -0.03 0.05
Post-school qualification
d
Yes -0.42*** 0.16 -0.32* 0.17 -0.10 0.21
No (reference) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Type of education
Catholic 0.09 0.23 0.08 0.24 0.31 0.29
Other non-government 0.45* 0.27 0.58** 0.28 0.80** 0.34
Government (reference) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Country of birth
Main English-speaking overseas
e
0.16 0.21 0.21 0.22 0.56** 0.27
Non-English-speaking overseas -0.42* 0.23 -0.51** 0.24 -0.36 0.29
Australia (reference) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Aboriginality
Indigenous 0.04 0.78 -0.09 0.79 -0.72 0.92
Not indigenous 0.00 0.00 0.00
Age
45–49 0.37* 0.20 0.58*** 0.21 0.07 0.28
50–54 0.02 0.20 0.17 0.22 -0.09 0.27
55–59 (reference) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Current occupation
High status
a
-0.95*** 0.25 -0.60** 0.30
Middle status
b
-0.91*** 0.27 -0.75** 0.33
Low status
c
-0.59** 0.26 -0.52* 0.31
No occupation (reference) 0.00 0.00
Per cent of working life employed -0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01
Gross annual income
f
-0.01 0.03 0.03 0.03
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
Men who attended non-Catholic non-government schools (most of which would be
fully independent schools, but which would also include schools affiliated to other
religious or secular organisations) also are significantly more likely to be childless
than men who attended government schools. The difference between former
Catholic schoolboys and former government schoolboys is not significant (Table 2).
Migrants from countries in which English is not the most widely spoken language
are significantly less likely to be childless than those who grew up in Australia, a
pattern which is unsurprising in view of the well-documented higher fertility in this
age range of female migrants from these regions (Carmichael and McDonald 2003).
However in Model 1 (Table 2) the difference between migrants from the mostly
English-speaking countries and the Australia-born is not significant. The contrast
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is not significant, which
reflects the small number of Indigenous men in the sample and the exclusion of
some of the more remote areas of Australia in which the more demographically
distinct Aboriginal peoples are found. There are also significant differences by age,
with men aged 45–49 being significantly more likely to be childless than men aged
50–59. These differences would reflect a combination of the shorter time exposed to
the risk of entering fatherhood of the younger men and the generally smaller desired
family sizes and later pattern of entering fatherhood of this more recently-born
cohort.
Interestingly, the likelihood of a man being childless appears to be more strongly
related to the status of his occupation than to his income. Model 2 in Table 2shows
the likelihood of a man being childless reduces as the status of his occupation
increases. Whilst the difference between men in ‘high status’ occupations and men
in ‘middle status’ occupations is not significant, both these groups are significantly
less likely to be childless than men in ‘low status’ occupations, who, in turn, are
significantly less likely to be childless than men without a recorded occupation. The
Table 2 continued
Variable Model 1 (n =1,596) Model 2 (n =1,539) Model 3 (n =1,539)
bSE(b)bSE(b)bSE(b)
Years married -0.27*** 0.03
(Years married)
2
0.004*** 0.001
Years cohabiting -0.33*** 0.10
(Years cohabiting)
2
0.02*** 0.01
Constant -0.94** 0.45 -0.01 0.61 1.17 0.77
*** pB0.01, ** 0.01 \pB0.05, * 0.05 \pB0.10
a
Managerial or administrative, professional or associate professional
b
Trades or related, advanced clerical and service and intermediate clerical, sales and service
c
Intermediate production or transport, elementary clerical, sales or service and labourers or related
d
Bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, doctorate, diploma, certificate, teaching qualification or nursing
qualification
e
Main English-speaking i.e., United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, USA or New Zealand
f
In A$10,000
N. Parr
123
effects of a man’s occupation reflect both effects on ‘involuntary childlessness’ as
well as effects on ‘voluntary childlessness’. The measured effects may reflect men
with children being more likely to be promoted into higher status occupations, as
well as the advantages higher occupational status men have in attracting and
retaining a partner and affording children and fertility treatments (Blake 1979).
Having children to provide for may also discourage early retirement, and the higher
rate of childlessness among those with ‘no occupation’ may partly reflect this effect
of childlessness on retirement. After controlling for occupation and the early
lifecourse variables, neither a man’s gross income (even after trying a range of
different functional forms) nor his percentage of working lifetime spent in paid
work has a significant effect on his likelihood of being childless.
A comparison between Models 1 and 2 in Table 2shows that the introduction of
the work-related variables has little effect on the size or significance of the parental
occupational effects. The effect of having a post-school qualification remains
significant after the inclusion of the work-related variables, however the reduction
in the size and significance of its coefficient indicates that some of the effect of this
variable is mediated by occupational attainment. In contrast, both the size and the
significance of the effect of having been educated in a non-government, non-
Catholic school are increased after controlling for the generally higher occupational
attainment of this group. The effect of this variable may reflect those who attended
more expensive schools perceiving the costs of children to be higher because they
also see a need for their children to attend such schools (Parr 2007).
Model 3 in Table 2shows, not surprisingly, the number of years a man has spent
in marriage has a significant inverse relationship with his likelihood of being
childless. This may reflect marital stability being enhanced by the presence of the
child, as well as the effects of longer exposure and a longer-proven stability of
marriage on childbearing (Waite and Lillard 1991; Bracher et al. 1993;Wu1995;
Berrington and Diamond 1999). The positive coefficient of the quadratic term for
years married implies that the effect of an additional year of marriage reduces as the
duration of marriage increases. The effect of increased marital duration appears to
be largely one of reducing the extent of ‘voluntary’ childlessness. To some extent it
may reflect those who did not want children opting to marry at older ages or not at
all. The combined linear and quadratic effects of the number of years in a cohabiting
union imply the likelihood of being childless reaches a minimum at around eight
years of cohabitation. A time spent in unmarried cohabitation above 8 years is
relatively rare, and is likely to be practiced largely by the select (often non-
conformist) group who see cohabitation as a long-term alternative to traditional
marriage and who also are more willing to depart from the tradition of having
children (Lesthaeghe 1995).
The effects of a man’s occupational status, the effects of his parents’ occupations,
and the effect of attending a non-government non-Catholic school remain significant
after the inclusion of the terms for exposure to unions (Model 3 in Table 2).
However the reduction of the effect of having post-school qualifications to
insignificance by the inclusion of these terms suggests that the lower rate of
childlessness among better qualified men is largely due to their being more likely
spend longer in marriage or unmarried cohabitation, as is shown by the data.
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
Similarly, the effects of age become insignificant with the inclusion of the terms for
exposure to union, suggesting the greater likelihood of childlessness among men
aged 45–49 (shown in Table 1) is almost entirely attributable to their shorter time
spent in unions. This shorter time spent in unions may be due both to their younger
ages and the generally later patterns of marriage which became evident in Australia
during the 1970s (ABS 2008b). The lower rate of childlessness among migrants
from mostly non-English-speaking countries also appears to be partly attributable to
the longer time they have spent in marital unions. In contrast, after controlling for
the generally longer lengths of time spent in marital and cohabiting relationships,
male migrants from the mostly English-speaking countries have a significantly
higher likelihood of being childless than Australia-born men. This may reflect the
disruption of unions by the migration or the need for the migrant to establish himself
in the labour market being to the detriment of entering fatherhood (Abbasi-Shavazi
and McDonald 2000). The differences in the likelihood of being childless between
men in ‘high status’ occupations and men with other occupations are reduced
considerably by the inclusion of the time spent in union variables, indicating that
some but not all of the lower rate of childlessness of men in ‘high status’
occupations is due to their greater likelihood of entering and remaining in
partnerships. For reasons discussed earlier, the difference between men without an
occupation and men with an occupation remains significant (Table 2).
Conclusion
This paper shows that a man’s likelihood of remaining childless to the later working
ages is affected by a range of aspects of social status including both those
determined relatively early in the lifecourse and those determined later.
The overall effect of early lifecourse advantage on a man’s likelihood of being
childless in later life is the sum of a mixture of counteracting effects. The generally
childlessness-reducing effects of father’s occupation may be indicative of economic
advantage per se tending to reduce the likelihood of childlessness. However, having
a private education, which is more prevalent among the children of the advantaged,
has a childlessness-increasing effect, possibly due to differing perceptions of the
costs of children (Parr 2007). Moreover, having a mother in a professional
occupation, also a type of advantage, is associated with an increased likelihood of a
man being childless, possibly because it is associated with more libertarian attitudes
to women’s roles which, in turn, tend to encourage childlessness (Lesthaeghe 1995;
McDonald 2000,2006; Parr 2005). Contrary to qualitative evidence which might
suggest they are linked to men’s fertility patterns, the size and intactness of the
family of origin are not significantly related to whether a man remains childless
(Carmichael and Whittaker 2007a).
Australian men in the later working ages who are in higher status occupations are
less likely to be childless than their counterparts in lower status occupations. It
appears that a man’s status, as indicated by whether or not he has an occupation and
or post-school qualifications, is a more important determinant of his likelihood of
entering fatherhood than is his income. The univariate variation in rates of
N. Parr
123
childlessness with occupational status at later ages for Australian men is the mirror
image of the pattern for women, among whom it is the higher status groups which
have the higher rates of childlessness (Parr 2005). A continuing lack of acceptance
of females taking on the role of primary breadwinner may contribute to the higher
rates of men in lower status occupations who are unpartnered and childless (Birrell
et al. 2004). The pattern for working men aged 45–59 of a reducing rate of
childlessness as occupational status increases also contrasts sharply with the pattern
for working men with ages below 45, among whom the HILDA data shows it is
those in higher status occupations who are the more likely to be childless. The
change in the gradient of childlessness with occupational status as age increases
may be indicative of the advantage of men in higher status occupations as potential
fathers becoming increasingly evident with advancing age. It may be argued,
therefore, that there is an incentive for men in low status occupations to enter unions
and parenthood at relatively earlier ages, since their likelihood of attracting and
having children with a relatively desirable partner is greater in these ages. The
change with age in the relationship between occupational status and childlessness
may also reflect the age-specific differences between these cohorts. With their
increased likelihood of tertiary study and the wider range of leisure alternatives,
younger ‘high status’ men are more likely to delay the establishment of their careers
and (hence) fatherhood than did their counterparts in earlier cohorts (Carmichael
and Whittaker 2007a). Moreover, younger ‘high status’ are more likely than their
forebears to partner with working women (particularly with women in ‘high status’
occupations), and hence to see the prospect of children in terms of economic
opportunity costs (Parr 2005). They may also be more likely to face the prospect of
additional domestic work and childcare that comes with (more) equal parenting and
to be deterred from parenthood by this (McLanahan 2004). Further analysis
comparing the 2001 data with later waves of data from the HILDA survey should
facilitate the untangling of the age-related and the cohort-related factors behind the
differing gradients between age groups of childlessness by men’s occupational
status which are evident in the 2001 data.
Acknowledgements This paper uses confidentialised unit record file from the Household, Income and
Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the
Commonwealth Department of Family, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
(FaHCSIA) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research
(MIAESR). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the author and should not
be attributed to either FaHCSIA or the MIAESR. The author wishes to thank the two anonymous
reviewers for their helpful comments.
References
Abbasi-Shavazi, M. J., & McDonald, P. (2000). Fertility and multiculturalism: Immigrant fertility in
Australia 1977–1991. The International Migration Review, 34(1), 215–242. doi:10.2307/2676018.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (1997a). How Australians use their time. Catalogue Number 4153.0.
Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (1997b). Australian standard classification of occupations (ASCO)
(2nd ed.). Catalogue Number 1220.0. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2006a). Tobacco smoking in Australia, 2004-05. Catalogue Number
4831.0.55.001. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved January 7, 2009 from http://www.
abs.gov.au.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2006b). Pregnancy and employment transitions. Australia. Catalogue
Number. 4913.0 Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2007). Births. Catalogue Number 3101.0. Canberra: Commonwealth of
Australia.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2008a). Overweight and obesity in adults, Australia, 2004-05. Catalogue
Number 4719.0. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved January 7, 2009 from
http://www.abs.gov.au.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2008b). Australian historical population statistics. Catalogue Number
3105.0.65.001. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved December 16, 2008 from http://
www.abs.gov.au.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2008). Australia’s health. Canberra: Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare. Retrieved January 7, 2009 from http://www.aihw.gov.au.
Baxter, J. (2002). Patterns of change and stability in the gender division of household labour in Australia,
1986–1997. Journal of Sociology (Melbourne, Vic.), 38(4), 399–424. doi:10.1177/14407830212
8756750.
Baxter, J. (2008). Is money the main reason mothers return to work after childbearing? Journal of
Population Research, 25(2), 141–160. doi:10.1007/BF03031946.
Berrington, A., & Diamond, I. (1999). Marital dissolution among the 1958 British birth cohort: The role
of cohabitation. Population Studies, 53(1), 19–38. doi:10.1080/00324720308066.
Bianchi, S. M. (2000). Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising
continuity. Demography, 37(4), 401–414. doi:10.1353/dem.2000.0001.
Birrell, B., Rapson, V., & Hourigan, C. (2004). Men and women apart: Partnering in Australia.
Melbourne: Australian Family Association and Monash University.
Blake, J. (1979). Is zero preferred? American attitudes towards childlessness in the 1970s. Journal of
Marriage and the Family, 41, 245–257. doi:10.2307/351694.
Borrie, W. D. (1993). The European peopling of Australasia: A demographic history, 1788–1988.
Canberra: ANU.
Bracher, M., Santow, G., Morgan, S. P., & Trussell, J. (1993). Marriage dissolution in Australia: Models
and explanations. Population Studies, 47(3), 403–425. doi:10.1080/0032472031000147216.
Breusch, T., & Gray, E. (2004a). New estimates of mothers’ forgone earnings using HILDA data.
Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 7(June), 125–150.
Breusch, T., & Gray, E. (2004b). Does marriage improve the wages of men and women in Australia?
Paper presented to the Australian Population Association 12th Biennial Conference, Canberra 15–17
September. Retrieved November 20, 2007 http://acsr.anu.edu.au/APA2004/papers/7D_Breusch.pdf.
Broderick, E. (2008). Gender equality: What matters to Australian men and women. Australian Human
Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. Available via http://www.humanrights.gov.au. Cited
16 December 2008.
Cannold, L. (2004). Declining marriage rates and gender inequity in social institutions: Towards an
adequately complex explanation of childlessness. People and Place, 12(4), 1–11.
Carmichael, G. A. (1998). Things ain’t what they used to be! Demography, mental cohorts, morality and
values in Post-War Australia. Journal of the Australian Population Association, 15(2), 91–114.
Carmichael, G. A., & McDonald, P. (2003). Fertility trends and differentials. In S. E. Khoo & P.
McDonald (Eds.), The transformation of Australia’s population 1970–2030 (pp. 40–76). Sydney:
UNSW.
Carmichael, G. A., & Whittaker, A. (2007a). Choice and circumstance: Qualitative insights into
contemporary childlessness in Australia. European Journal of Population, 23(2), 111–143. doi:
10.1007/s10680-006-9112-4.
Carmichael, G. A., & Whittaker, A. (2007b). Forming relationships in Australia: Qualitative insights into
a process important to human wellbeing. Journal of Population Research, 24(1), 23–50. doi:
10.1007/BF03031877.
Chambers, G. M., Ho, M. T., & Sullivan, E. A. (2006). Assisted reproductive technology treatment costs
of a live birth: An age stratified cost-outcome study of treatment in Australia. The Medical Journal
of Australia, 184(4), 155–156.
N. Parr
123
Chapman, B., Dunlop, Y., Gray, M., Liu, A., & Mitchell, D. (2001). The impact of children on the
lifetime earnings of Australian women: Evidence from the 1990s. The Australian Economic Review,
34, 373–389. doi:10.1111/1467-8462.00207.
Coleman, D. A. (2000). Male fertility trends in industrialised countries: Theories in search of some
evidence. In C. H. Bledsoe, S. Lerner, & J. I. Guyer (Eds.), Fertility and the male life-cycle in the
era of fertility decline (pp. 29–60). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Craig, L. (2005). Does father’s care mean father’s share? Gender & Society, 20(2), 259–281. doi:
10.1177/0891243205285212.
Craig, L. (2006). Children and the revolution: A time diary analysis of the impact of motherhood on daily
workload. Journal of Sociology (Melbourne, Vic.), 42(2), 125–143. doi:10.1177/1440783306064942.
Craig, L., & Bittman, M. (2004). The effect of children on adult’s time-use: Analysis of the incremental
time costs of children in Australia. Paper presented to the Conference on Cross National
Comparisons of Expenditures on Children at Princeton, New Jersey, USA, January 8–9, 2004.
European Commission. (2004). How Europeans spend their time: Everyday life of women and men.
Luxembourg: Office for official publications of European communities.
Gilding, M. (2005). Rampant misattributed paternity: The creation of an urban myth. People and Place,
13(2), 1–11.
Gilding, M., & Turney, L. (2006). Public opinion on DNA peternity testing: The influence of the media.
People and Place, 14(2), 4–13.
Gray, E. (2002). What do we know about men’s fertility levels in Australia? People and Place, 10(4),
1–11.
Gray, M., Qu, L., Stanton, D., & Weston, R. (2004). Long work hours and the wellbeing of fathers and
their families. Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 7(2), 255–273.
Hagestad, G. O., & Call, V. R. A. (2007). Pathways to childlessness: A life course perspective. Journal of
Family Issues, 28(10), 1338–1361. doi:10.1177/0192513X07303836.
Hand, K., & Lewis, V. (2002). Father’s views on family life and paid work; do working fathers think they
have enough time to spend with their children? Family Matters (Melbourne, Vic.), 63(Autumn),
26–29.
Henman, P., Percival, R., Harding, A., & Gray, M. (2007). Costs of children: Research commissioned by
the ministerial taskforce on child support. Occasional Paper No. 18. Canberra: Australian
Government Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.
Juby, H., & Le Bourdais, C. (1998). The changing context of fatherhood in Canada: A life course
analysis. Population Studies, 52(2), 163–175. doi:10.1080/0032472031000150356.
Karmel, P. (1993). How much education? Journal of the Australian Population Association, 10(1),
17–30.
Kaufman, G., & Uhlenberg, P. (2000). The influence of parenthood on the work effort of married men and
women. Social Forces, 78(3), 931–949. doi:10.2307/3005936.
Koropeckyj-Cox, T., & Call, V. R. A. (2007). Characteristics of older childless persons and parents:
Cross-national comparisons. Journal of Family Issues, 28(10), 1362–1414. doi:10.1177/
0192513X07303837.
Lappegard, T. (2008). Changing the gender balance in caring: Fatherhood and the division of parental
leave in Norway. Population Policy and Research Review, 27(2), 139–159. doi:10.1007/
s11113-007-9057-2.
Lesthaeghe, R. (1995). The Second Demographic Transition in Western countries: An interpretation.
In K. O. Mason & A. M. Jensen (Eds.), Gender and family change in industrialized countries
(pp. 17–62). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Marks, G. N. (2006). Family size, family type and student achievement: Cross-national differences and
the role of socioeconomic and school factors. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 37(1), 1–27.
McDonald, P. F. (1974). Marriage in Australia: Age at first marriage and proportions marrying, 1860–
1971. Canberra: ANU.
McDonald, P. (2000). Gender equity, social institutions and the future of fertility. Journal of Population
Research, 17(1), 1–16.
McDonald, P. (2006). Low fertility and the state: The efficacy of policy. Population and Development
Review, 32(3), 485–512. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2006.00134.x.
McLachlan, R. (2007). Male infertility. Fact sheet published by Andrology Australia. Retrieved January
7, 2009 from http://www.andrologyaustralia.org.
McLachlan, R., & De Kretser, D. M. (2001). Male infertility: The case for continued research. The
Medical Journal of Australia, 174, 116–117.
Childlessness Among Men in Australia
123
McLachlan, R. I., Yazdani, A., Kovacs, G., & Howlett, D. (2005). Management of the infertile couple.
Australian Family Physician, 34(3), 111–117.
McLanahan, S. (2004). Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second demographic
transition. Demography, 41(4), 607–627. doi:10.1353/dem.2004.0033.
Merlo, R., & Rowland, D. (2000). The prevalence of childlessness in Australia. People and Place, 8(2),
21–32.
Miller, P. J., Law, M., Torzillo, P. J., & Kaldor, J. (2001). Incident sexually transmitted infections and
their risk factors in an Aboriginal community in Australia: A population based cohort study.
Sexually Transmitted Infections, 77, 21–25. doi:10.1136/sti.77.1.21.
Parr, N. J. (2005). Family background, schooling and childlessness in Australia. Journal of Biosocial
Science, 37(2), 229–243. doi:10.1017/S0021932004006546.
Parr, N. (2006). Do children from small families do better? Journal of Population Research, 23(1), 1–25.
doi:10.1007/BF03031865.
Parr, N. (2007). Which women stop at one child in Australia. Journal of Population Research, 24(2),
1–20. doi:10.1007/BF03031931.
Parr, N., Ferris, S., & Mahuteau, S. (2007). The impact of children on Australian women’s and men’s
superannuation. Economic and Labour Relations Review, 18(1), 3–26.
Percival, R., & Harding, A. (2002). All they need is love and around $450,000. The AMP_NATSEM
Income and Wealth Report, No. 3. AMP.
Rowland, D. T. (2007). Historical trends in childlessness. Journal of Family Issues, 28(10), 1311–1337.
doi:10.1177/0192513X07303823.
Smyth, B., Weston, R., Moloney, L., Richardson, N., & Temple, J. (2008). Changes in patterns of post-
separation parenting over time: Recent Australian data. Journal of Family Studies, 14(1), 23–36.
University of Maryland Medical Centre. (2006). Infertility in men. University of Maryland Medical
Centre. Retrieved January 7, 2009 from http://www.umm.edu/patiented/.
Van de Kaa, D. (1997). Options and sequences: Europe’s demographic patterns. Journal of the Australian
Population Association, 14(1), 1–30.
Waite, L. J., & Lillard, L. A. (1991). Children and marital disruption. American Journal of Sociology,
96(4), 930–953. doi:10.1086/229613.
Watson, N., & Wooden, M. (2002). The household, income and labour dynamics in Australia (HILDA)
survey: Wave 1 survey methodology. Hilda Project Technical Paper Series No. 1/02.
Weston, R., & Qu, L. (2001). Men’s and women’s reasons for not having children. Family Matters
(Melbourne, Vic.), 58, 10–15.
Weston, R., Qu, L., Parker, R., & Alexander, M. (2004). It’s not for lack of wanting kids. Melbourne:
Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Whitehouse, G., Baird, M., Diamond, C., & Hosking, A.(2006). Parental leave in Australia survey:
November 2006 report. Retrieved January 2, 2007 from http://www.uq.edu.a/polsis/parental-
leave/level1-report.pdf.
Williamson, M., McVeigh, C., & Baafi, M. (2008). An Australian perspective on fatherhood and
sexuality. Midwifery, 24(1), 99–107.
Wu, Z. (1995). The stability of cohabiting relationships: The role of children. Journal of Marriage and
the Family, 57(Feb), 231–236. doi:10.2307/353831.
N. Parr
123