Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
School
School of Arts and Humanities
First Supervisor
Eyal Gringart
Second Supervisor
Craig Harms
Abstract
The fertility rate in Australia has been below replacement level since 1976, which suggests that more women of childbearing age have two, one, or no children. There are consistently more people in Australia who do not ever have children – whether by choice, chance, or circumstance – yet little is known about attitudes towards non-parents. The current research comprised three progressive studies that explored attitudes towards non-parents in 21st century Australia. Study One invited people without children to qualitatively define their non-parenthood through a lens of stigmatisation, marginalisation, and social inclusion. Study One also examined how non-parents perceived society viewed them. Thematic and content analyses of the data from 199 Australian participants identified five groups of non-parents, namely Medically Childless, Socially Childless, Choosers, Procrastinators, and Non-contemplators. The Medically Childless, Socially Childless, Choosers and Non-contemplators reported that society held negative attitudes towards them. Procrastinators noted that they were not viewed negatively by society. To further investigate the results of Study One, Study Two quantitatively explored the attitudes towards childfree people. Utilising an attitudes scale, Study Two surveyed and analysed data from 468 respondents from a general population sample. It found no statistically significant difference towards men, based on their parental status. Further, it found statistically significant differences towards women who were Procrastinators or Non-contemplators compared to parents, but not towards women who were Choosers. To examine the results of Study Two further, Study Three utilised qualitative in-depth interviews with 14 childfree women to examine perceived societal attitudes from their perspective. It was found that women without children in Australia are viewed extremely negatively, specifically, as inherently bad (the ‘Witch’), career-obsessed instead of motherhood focussed (the ‘Career Bitch’), or faulty by virtue of also being single (the ‘Unhitched’). Having synthesised the results of the three studies, it is contended that the status of women is being challenged and that their non-parenthood is part of our socio-cultural inventory used to maintain kyriarchy.
DOI
10.25958/p7z2-gs37
Access Note
Access to this thesis is embargoed until 25th April 2030
Recommended Citation
Harman, B. (2025). The 'witch', the 'career bitch', and the 'unhitched': A mixed methods study of attitudes towards childfree women in Australia. Edith Cowan University. https://doi.org/10.25958/p7z2-gs37