Framtidsoro

En undersökning av reflektioner om barnfrihet

Authors

• Tove Ingebjørg Fjell Universitetet i Bergen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30666/elore.110843

Keywords:

Childfreedom, voluntary childlessness, family, fear of future, environmental issues

Abstract

This empirical study, based on Norwegian research material, examines how worries about the future are expressed regarding the question of reproduction. By worries about the future is meant an increased awareness of future scenarios which involve either worries about a personal future, or worries about the futures of the earth and the world, or possible overlaps between the two. Focus is on being childfree, and how this is connected to worries about the future. The empirical research material is from newspapers and questionnaires. Research questions are posed on future worries found in media contributions regarding childbirth, as well as a questionnaire distributed to a group of young adults reflecting on future worries and reproduction. In recent decades media contributions have been focused on worries about one’s personal future, expressed in statements involving career, travel or freedom as motives for being childfree. In media contributions from the 1990s and early 2000s, there are reflections on worries connected to the future of the earth and the world, and in recent years worries about the climate crisis, environmental challenges and overpopulation are found as motives for not having children. In the answers to the questionnaire most of those who wished to stay childfree reflected on worries about their personal futures, being free from inhibitions that could restrict their lives and their personal development. Fewer pointed to worries about the futures of the earth and the world. The analysis shows that future worries regarding the earth and world have become more important and defined, though not to a large degree. It is not always a question of either worries connected to a personal future, or worries connected to the future of the earth and the world: Both types of future worries may be found intertwined.

 

Keywords: worries about future, childfreedom, voluntary childlessness, climate