Childrearing and Childbearing

Over the past 40 years, changing patterns of childbearing in our society can be summarised in terms of; women remaining childless, which then expands into reasons such as the finical expense of children, them being an economic liability, women’s positions within society, the introduce of contraception and abortions and immigration.

Firstly, the rise in women remaining childlessness, an interesting feature of modern day households of individuals and couples is the general increase in childlessness since 1970. Self and Zealey (2007) note that “The proportion of women reaching the end of their childbearing years (aged 45) who remained childless ‘rose from 11% in 1969 to 25% in 2000. Reasoning’s of this could include theories such as Abercrombie and Warde (2000) who suggests this is due to the increase of female participation in the workforce and also reasons such as the finical pressures involving children, them becoming an economic liability.

The economic liability of children has dramatically changed since the late 1900’s when comparing to today. Within 1970 children were labelled as economic ‘aspects’ who were owned by their parents, this meant that children from a young age were sent out to work, helping provide income for the family. However, today the role of children has changed, resulting to a decline in births, alternatively effecting childbearing. Within 1972 laws were enforced for compulsory education for all children up to 16 years old, and then followed by child labour laws. This resulted in children being more economically dependent on their parents for a longer period of time. The changes of the norms of what a child should expect materially have risen since 1970, which then begun to have restriction for low income families; and more recently, the introduction of University tuition fees has added to (mainly middle and upper class) family costs.   This liability has caused financial pressure for parents resulting in the decline in birth rates due...