Minimal families: Childlessness and intergenerational transfers

Previous research has been wanting in two respects : it has considered the childless as homogeneous, and it has conceptualised them as a problem group. Policy-oriented research has therefore tended to focus on the general consequences of childlessness on the demand for public health and social care services as well as on the institutional arrangements that might reduce the prevalence of childlessness. The aim of this special issue is to redress this double deficit. Firstly, we address the complexity of the social mechanisms that explain the consequences of childlessness for individuals by taking into account not only older people’s parenthood status, but also their gender, marital history and motivations for having no child. Secondly, we conceptualise childless older people not as a social problem but as a societal resource, by focusing not on what people without children lack and need but on what they provide to their families, to the younger generations and to society at large. Contributors: Kohli, M; Albertini, M.; Adloff, F.; Hurd, M.; Dykstra, P.; Wenger, G. C..