Stigma Management among the Voluntarily Childless

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Abstract
Individuals who choose not to be parents are viewed in terms of negative stereotypes and experience social pressures to alter or justify their status. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with twenty-four voluntarily childless women and men and a focus group that included seven of the interviewed individuals. Inductive analysis discovered the techniques that individuals used, in self-interaction and social interactions with various audiences, to manage stigmatized identity and preserve a good self. Strategies included passing, identity substitution, condemning the condemnors, asserting a right to self-fulfillment, claiming biological deficiency, and redefining the situation. Primarily defensive, reactive techniques accepted pronatalist norms, intermediate techniques challenged conventional ideologies, and proactive techniques redefined childlessness as a socially valuable lifestyle. Use of these strategies was part of the “identity work” that individuals engaged in to reject discreditable identities as voluntarily childless individuals.