Scholarly record

MODELING OF VOLUNTARY CHILDLESSNESS IN MODERN RUSSIA

Oksana Kuchmaeva, E. Eyarnikh, A. Timofeev, I. Uspenskaya, E. Kovanova

Abstract

Childlessness in the modern world is becoming increasingly common. Of absolute interest is the assessment of the scale and trends of voluntary childlessness, a comprehensive assessment of factors and models of childlessness. The article attempts to identify the main determinants and typological groups of voluntarily childless men and women on the basis of methods of statistical analysis – descriptive statistics, construction of a goal tree and cluster analysis. Conscious childlessness is not a new phenomenon, which is typical only for young ages. Rather, the phenomenon has moved beyond the category of "socially unapproved" and has become accessible to public discourse. Voluntary childlessness among Russians occurs in different age groups. It is impossible to single out a single trend and a group of reasons in the spread of voluntary childlessness, the formation of conscious childlessness is influenced by a set of factors. Methods of multivariate analysis revealed a number of typological groups. Among the childless women are young, under the age of 25 years, never married and not experiencing a sense of loneliness or uncertainty about the future. To a large extent, the prevalence of voluntary childlessness is influenced by socio-psychological factors. Russian women without children often feel lonely. Women without children have a better appreciation of their health, which may indirectly indicate their greater attention to their health, a greater value of health against the background of reproductive values.

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