AccScience Publishing / IJPS / Volume 7 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.36922/ijps.v7i2.352
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PERSPECTIVE ARTICLE

Childlessness: A review of the theoretical frameworks and a proposition of general pathways

Victor A. Leocádio1*
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1 Center for Development and Regional Planning (CEDEPLAR), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Submitted: 16 September 2022 | Accepted: 3 November 2022 | Published: 15 November 2022
© 2022 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

The literature on childlessness has received increasing prominence in demographic studies because, with increasing levels of childlessness, it helps the understanding of important demographic concerns, such as reproductive behavior, family formation, and gender relations. Although a growing number of empirical studies on low fertility have been discussing childlessness, less research has attempted to discuss it from a theoretical perspective. This work has, therefore, the objective of debating theoretically important and recurrent issues in the literature on childlessness. This general aim is divided into three specific objectives: First, to discuss a range of contexts, aspects, and theoretical approaches that explain childlessness, second, to document the association between childlessness and important sociodemographic variables, and third, to develop a proposition of general pathways to childlessness. This study shows that several socioeconomic factors together with important correlated theories help to explain increasing childlessness. It also documents how childlessness is especially related to higher levels of education, singlehood, being African descents, living in urban areas, and having no religious affiliation. This work also finds and discusses four general pathways to childlessness in the proposed framework. This study contributes to the development of the theoretical framework on childlessness and encourages further research into this topic.

Keywords
Childlessness
Theoretical framework
General pathways
Funding
None.
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Conflict of interest
The author declares he has no competing interests.
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International Journal of Population Studies, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8606 Print ISSN: 2424-8150, Published by AccScience Publishing