Neither ''Less'' nor ''Free''

The tectonic forces of falling birth-rates and aging populations are slowly but surely changing demographic landscapes in the West. But unlike the inevitability of aging, the underlying causes and effects of our waning capacity to reproduce are not as well known or understood. Involuntary childlessness is increasingly a fact of life for many Western women and couples. Yet we view it narrowly in terms of infertility and limited concepts of grief and loss. We also know very little about how they adjust to life without children and reconstruct their identities and relationships. This study is a probing and insightful analysis of the experience of the involuntarily childless and offers lessons for policy-makers and health professionals. For the childless, it is a guide to a hitherto unacknowledged alternative pathway to personal, self development and other forms of generativity.