Please join us for a Work-In-Progress lunch with Lauren Jade Martin, APC Visiting Scholar; Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies Minor Program Coordinator, Penn State University (Berks campus).

Paper Title: Delayers, Deciders, and Decliners: Using Longitudinal Data to Track Childless Women’s Reproductive Trajectories

Discussant: Ayako Kano, East Asian Languages and Civilizations & APC/GSWS Core Faculty

Discussant: Pilar Gonalons-Pons, Sociology & APC/GSWS Executive Board Member

The paper is available either by email when you RSVP (see link below) or in hard-copy at the APC offices at Fisher-Bennett Hall, Suite 345

Using in-depth interviews and surveys, this work-in-progress tracks the reproductive trajectories of a sample of childless American women at two points in time over a four-year period. How do women decide whether or not they want to have children, go from wanting children to attempting and having children, or incorporate significant life changes into their calculations about their reproductive futures? To what extent do women stick to their original plans to have or not have children, or change their minds and reevaluate their desires? As women move further along the life course with marriages, divorces, new jobs, new cities, or degrees completed, do they feel more or less prepared to become parents? Because time and aging play an essential role in women’s perceptions of their ability to conceive, give birth, and raise children, the passing of small periods of time—in years or even months—is important both symbolically and bio-medically.