Student Publications
“Shouldn’t I Know If I Want to Have Kids or Not?”: Established Adult Women’s Reproductive Decision Making
Document Type
Article
Abstract
An upward trend in age at first birth (OECD. 2019), accompanied by a decline in overall birth rates (Hamilton et al., National Center for Health Statistics, 2021), highlights the importance of better understanding the reproductive decision making of established adults (ages 30–45). To this end, we qualitatively interviewed 17 cisgender US established adult women who had not had children to gain a better understanding of influences on and feelings about reproductive decision making. Participants described external influences, including age, parental pressure, and societal pressure. Participants also described reasons to forgo or delay reproduction, including feeling prepared, having the freedom to pursue their own interests, and concerns about the environmental impact of reproducing. Finally, participants shared emotional responses to reproductive decision making, describing anxiety and ambivalence, and concerns about not having children. Taken together, our results highlight the complexities of reproductive decision making for established adult women. Better understanding established adult women’s reproductive decision making can encourage and inform policy and therapeutic interventions. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2025.
Publication Title
Journal of Adult Development
Publication Date
2025
ISSN
1068-0667
DOI
10.1007/s10804-025-09530-0
Keywords
established adults, family planning, fertility, reproduction, reproductive decision making
Repository Citation
Mehta, Clare M.; Davis, Gianna E.; and Smith, Kelly, "“Shouldn’t I Know If I Want to Have Kids or Not?”: Established Adult Women’s Reproductive Decision Making" (2025). Student Publications. 54.
https://commons.clarku.edu/student_publications/54
