Explanation of Childfree Research Bibliography

	Every now and then my interest in a topic motivates me to hunt down pertinent empirical research.  (As a quantitative psychologist who works a lot with meta-analysis for research synthesis, I gravitate toward understanding things this way.)  There's quite a bit of research about childfree individuals and couples, so I decided to start a bibliography.  I searched a couple electronic databases (PsycINFO and the [Social] Science[s] Citation Index), separated relevant findings from false alarms (based on titles and abstracts), and compiled the resulting 148 citations (APA format) and abstracts in an Excel file.  A relatively tidy version is posted in this group's 'Files' section.  (Sorry, but I can't get the actual reports for anyone; try a library or Google Scholar.)

	This search was fairly broad and informal: The list isn't exhaustive, some pieces are only marginally relevant, and some citations or abstracts may be incomplete or contain errors.  Caveats aside, interesting studies and findings cropped up.  Here are a few recurring themes and questions addressed by authors:

* How common are different types of childlessness?

* What are causes, consequences, and other correlates of childlessness?

* How do childless people's experiences differ from those of people with children?

* What are people's perceptions of or attitudes toward childless individuals or couples?

	A majority of the pieces are articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals; the rest are mainly dissertations, and a few are books or chapters.  There's a mix of quantitative and qualitative research as well as a few theoretical pieces (e.g., analyses based on feminist theory); I can't vouch for any of its scientific or scholarly merit.  Much of this research focuses on women (understandably), though some includes men -- mainly as members of heterosexual couples.  To be pragmatic, I limited the scope to works that appear to address "voluntary childlessness" and neglected heaps of research focused solely on "involuntary childlessness" (e.g., associated with infertility) or people with children.

	Feel free to suggest additions, corrections, or other changes.  The bibliography could be improved substantially by actually reading each piece to judge its relevance, combing other databases and using other search strategies (e.g., reference chasing, tapping sources like the "invisible college" for conference papers and other "fugitive" or "grey" literature, browsing issues of the most cited journals in this domain), and developing categories or tags for organization.  I don't have specific plans to tackle these things, but if there's enough interest I'll consider it.  Finally, anyone who wants to is welcome to build on what I've compiled (and contact me for fuller results from my database searches).


--Adam H.