The attitudes towards parenthood of childless married couples

This paper shows the results of author’s study carried out in Wielkopolska region in 1999 among 140 childless married couples in various types of local community. The aim of this study was to analyse the attitudes towards the parenthood of temporarily-, voluntary- and involuntary childless couples. Temporarily childless couples delay parenthood because of four main reasons: the economical factors, the amenities of life, the career and continuation of education. The attitudes of temporarily childless couples towards the child can be called neutral or anti-child. The important reasons of decision of voluntary childless couples not to have children is having more time for each other as a couple and enjoying travel and leisure time. These couples tend to be well educated, to earn high incomes and to be unbelieving. It was found that most of infertielity wifes don’t consider that the child is the greatest happiness, but nearly all of them were or still are under treatment. Near 40% of the couples are under social pressure because of their childlessness