Childlessness in Northwestern Europe: A Brief History

Widespread childlessness is not a recent condition but a long-standing reality in northwestern European towns and cities from around 1500 onwards, with the signal exception of the baby boom.  This paper presents the general contours of the history of childlessness based on a novel synthesis of secondary literature from family history, the history of singlewomen, demography, and sociology.  Childlessness, related to but distinct from singleness, is a distinct category of human experience with a history of its own.  Self-conscious childlessness marks us as human.

The primary drivers of early modern childlessness are the postponement of marriage and low illegitimacy rates, especially through the mid-eighteenth century.  By putting off marriage and childrearing for a decade or longer, women could achieve other goals, such as security, independence, and respectability.  In the end, some never married, and others married too late to have children.  

A major shift began in the late nineteenth century, when childless women were more likely to be married than unmarried due to the growing though uneven acceptance of contraceptive practices.  Rates of childlessness within marriage outstripped what might be expected due to infertility, even when age at marriage is taken into consideration.  Childlessness declined during the baby boom—lowest for cohorts born 1935—but has returned since the 1970s.  The main difference for childless women since the 1970s is their increased ability to speak openly about their preferences and therefore explore the ambiguity of “choosing” to be childless within continuing cultural, economic, and biological constraints.