Hur vet man att man vill ha barn? : En kvalitativ studie om kvinnors förståelse av frivilig barnlöshet, moderskap och sociala normer

Sammanfattning

This study examines how women aged 30-40 without children describe, interpret and understand the desire, hesitation or unwillingness to have children. The aim is to analyze how women´s reasoning is shaped in relation to norms surrounding motherhood and femininity in late modern society. The study is based on Anthony Giddens theory of late modernity and the reflexive self, together with West and Zimmerman's theory doing gender. The empirical material consists of eight semi-structured interviews with childfree women from different parts of Sweden. The material has been analyzed using hermeneutic and thematic approach. The finding shows that decisions about children are understood as part of an individual life project in which self-fulfillment motherhood emerges, as the women experience expectations from others to want children. The study demonstrates how women´s reasoning about parenthood is shaped within tension between individual life choices and societal ideas about femininity and family formation.