ABSTRACT
Objective
This study explores how life course norms, social pressures, and biological realities shape women’s childbearing perceptions and decisions.
Background
In recent years, the context of childbearing in the United States has changed substantially with people postponing childbearing until older ages. Yet reproductive timelines are biologically constrained. This study demonstrates how various pressures and constraints shape women’s childbearing and family-formation decisions.
Method
This study used qualitative in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 65 reproductive-age women (aged 18–35 years) in Ohio. We coded transcripts in Dedoose using thematic and inductive methods.
Results
Women in this study identified a normative timeline for childbearing that aligned with traditional life course markers of marriage and socioeconomic stability. Participants were also aware that these markers did not easily fit within the limited biological timeframe for childbearing. Results are interpreted through an emerging framework of responsible fertility, defined as having children in a context and on a timeline that is socially, culturally, and biologically normative.
Conclusion
This study reveals the circumstances in which participants want to have children and the difficulties they face in doing so on a timeline they perceive as normative, responsible, and within the constraints of biological realities of childbearing.
Implications
Family-friendly policy changes and increased access to medically accurate information on fecundity may help women more easily reconcile social and biological childbearing constraints.