Introduction

Part of the Family Structure group of concepts, Childless Couples discusses the definition and data methodology around specification of Childless Couples and how they are represented in MCHP data.

Measuring childlessness is challenging due to the growing complexity of family structure. Trends in marital dissolution contributed to remarriages and re-partnerships. As a result, many individuals without biological children may have stepchildren, whereas some biological children may become estranged from divorced or repartnered parents.

In a strict sense, childlessness is defined as the absence of children in an individual’s life. A childless couple is the union of two adult individuals with no children or stepchildren from previous unions or adopted children. Couples with no children may be the result of choice or unvoluntary events, such as infertility. Individuals and couples that choose not to have children prefer to be referred to as “childfree" rather than as “childless", as childless implies that they lack something they wanted, fueling feelings of inadequacy, being left out or misunderstood. Childfree by choice represent a minority of childlessness. For more information, see Statistics Canada webpage - Childfree by Choice - https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11-008-x/2003001/article/6528-eng.pdf?st=wx786nba , accessed February 20, 2024.

Unfortunately, the Repository does not have data on childbearing intentions, making it not possible to distinguish between voluntary and unvoluntary childlessness.

Childless couples are formed by the union of two childless individuals. For more information, see the Childless individuals concept.

Note that the state of not having children is time-dependent and may change with age. Therefore, operational definitions need to specify an age limit (e.g., proportion of couples with no children by the age of 40).

Pathways

A Childless Couple may result from:


• Two Unattached Childless Individuals entering into a marriage or Common-law union
  
• Death of a child or children in a Two-Person Household with children
  
• In-migration of a Two-Person Household with no children

A Childless Couple relationship ends upon:


• Divorce or Separation, resulting in two Unattached Individuals
  
• Birth of a child, resulting in a Two-Person Household with children (Two-parent Family)
  
• Death of one or both members, any survivor being an Unattached Individual

Methods

A Childless Couple can be specified by the following steps:


1. Run the %RegRelation() SAS® macro to find all Child and Spouse relationships. This is an ‘all time’ search that finds relationships at any time since 1970 up to the most recent Registry file.
   
2. Persons in a marriage or common-law union before the birth of a child during that Marriage are defined as a Childless Couple.

Cautions / Limitations

Under-reporting of Marriages in the Registry leads to people, particularly fathers, being incorrectly characterized as Unattached Individuals. It may happen that a person with children from a previous relationship unknown to the Registry remarries into what looks like a Childless Couple.

The Registry is very limited in its ability to determine cohabitation, let alone legal custody arrangements, so the extent to which children from previous relationships are involved in the lives of the ‘Childless’ Couple is difficult to determine.

The loss of coverage by one member of a Childless Couple does not necessarily end the relationship. Some reasons for loss of coverage, such as death, can be used to infer an end to the relationship. In that case the surviving member would become a Childless Individual.

Other reasons for loss of coverage do not necessarily imply the end of the relationship:


• Entering the RCMP or Military
  
• Entering a federal correctional facility
  
• The person cannot be located

In these cases the coverage in Manitoba effectively ends and is dropped or taken over by another body. This creates the situation where a single person is covered in Manitoba as one member of a Childless Couple, with the other member possibly still living in the household.

In terms of family dynamics these individuals are not the same as Childless Individuals, so it may be appropriate to keep them classified as part of a Childless Couple even though only one member is observed.

Out-migration of both members ends follow-up but that does not imply that the relationship ended. For cohort studies this may be irrelevant, since both members are no longer covered and are dropped from further analyses. In time-to-event studies, however, out-migration should be considered a censoring event as a definite endpoint of the state of childlessness is not observed.