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Reasons for childlessness
Reasons for childlessness include, but are not limited to, the following.


 * celibacy,
 * personal choice,


 * infertility, defined as the
 * (infant or child death)
 * medical or gynaecological problems,
 * lack of appropriate resources,
 * environment,
 * lack of a partner, or lack of willingness from partner.
 * social infertility.
 * lack of a partner, or lack of willingness from partner.
 * social infertility.

Statistics

 * Infertility is estimated to affect 10 to 15 percent of the population.
 * One out of every five couples are faced with involuntary childlessness.
 * In several developed countries a growing proportion of women and their partners are not having children. Recent estimates of permanent childlessness for women in the United Kingdom and the United States of America of 20% and 22% respectively. Estimates for 2000 suggested that 24% of Australian women currently in their reproductive years would never have children.
 * In several developed countries a growing proportion of women and their partners are not having children. Recent estimates of permanent childlessness for women in the United Kingdom and the United States of America of 20% and 22% respectively. Estimates for 2000 suggested that 24% of Australian women currently in their reproductive years would never have children.

Personal
For most individuals, for most of history, childlessness has been regarded as a great personal tragedy, involving much emotional pain and grief, especially when it resulted from a failure to conceive or from the death of a child. Before conception was well-understood, childlessness was usually blamed on the woman and this in itself added to the high level of negative emotional and social effects of childlessness.

The way in which involuntary childlessness people cope with their loss is expected to influence the distress they experience and the possible symptoms related to this distress, such as health problems, anxiety, depression and bereavement. People dealing with involuntary childless can be affected as though they have gone through a death of a child, which can result in depression.
 * Psychological Effects

Social
Socially, childlessness has also resulted in financial stress and sometimes ruin in societies which depend on their offspring to contribute economically and to support other members of the family or tribe. “In agricultural societies about 20 per cent of all couples would not have children because of problems for at least one of the partners. Worry about assuring the desired birth rate could become an important part of family life … even after a first child was born. … In agricultural societies up to half of all children born would die within two years … (Excess surviving children could among other things, be sent to childless families to provide labour there, reducing upkeep demands at home.) When a population disaster hit – like war or major disease – higher birth rates might briefly be feasible to fill out community ranks.” “Some wealthy families also adopted children, as a means of providing heirs in cases of childlessness or where no sons had been born.”[5] The monetary incentives offered by westerners desire for children is so strong that a commercial market in the child laundering business exists.

Political
Specific instances of childlessness, especially in cases of royal succession, but more generally for people in positions of power or influence, have had enormous impacts on politics, culture and society. In many cases, a lack of a male child was also considered a type of childlessness, since male children were needed as heirs to property and titles. Examples of historical impacts of actual or potential childlessness include:


 * Elizabeth I of England was childless, choosing not to marry in part to prevent political instability in the kingdom, which passed on her death from the House of Tudor to the House of Stuart.
 * Henry VIII of England divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon, to whom he had been married for more than 20 years, because she had not produced a male heir to the throne. This decision set in train a break between the English and the Roman churches that reverberated across Europe for centuries.
 * Queen Anne had seventeen pregnancies but none of her children survived so the throne passed from the House of Stuart to the House of Hanover.
 * Napoléon’s first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais, did not bear him any children so he divorced her and married another in order to produce an heir.
 * The lack of a male heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan brought the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

Impact of voluntary childlessness
{{fontcolor|red|All forms of contraception have played a role in voluntary childlessness over time, but oral contraception alone has profoundly contributed to changes in societal ideas and norms.

{{fontcolor|red|History of Oral Contraception}}


 * {{fontcolor|red|Margaret Sanger, an activist in 1914, was an important figure during the reproductive rights movement. She coined the term "birth control" and opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. Sanger collaborated with many others to make the first oral contraception possible, these persons include: Gregory Pincus, John Rock, Frank Colton, and Katherine McCormick.  The pill was approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for contraceptive use in the year 1960 and although it was controversial, it remained the most popular form of birth control in the U.S. until 1967 when there was a rise in publicity about the possible health risks associated with the pill; consequently sales dropped twenty-four percent.  In the year 1988 the original high-dose pill was taken off the market and replaced with a low-dose pill that was considered to have less risks and some health benefits.}} {{fontcolor|red| }}

{{fontcolor|red|Societal Impact}}


 * {{fontcolor|red|The availability of oral contraception during the late 1900s was directly related to the women's rights movement by establishing, for the first time, a mass distribution of a way to control fertility. The pill gave women the opportunity to make different life choices they may not previously been able to make. For example, furthering their career.  This led to monumental changes in the current gender and family roles.  Voluntary childlessness, in relation to contraception has influenced women's health, laws and policies, interpersonal relationships, feminist issues, and sexual practices among adults and adolescents.}} {{fontcolor|red| }}

In the 20th and 21st centuries, when control over conception became reliable in some countries, childlessness is having an enormous impact on national planning and financial planning.