Nedobrovolná bezdětnost jako sociologické téma
| Title in English | Involuntary childlessness in sociological perspective |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2006 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Sociology, demography |
| Keywords | involuntary childlessness; infertility; stigmatization; social exclusion; gender differences |
| Description | While fertility rates in Western countries are low and the number of people who will remain voluntarily childless is increasing, more and more couples are seeking medical treatment for infertility. It is estimated that 10–15% of couples around the world suffer from fertility complications. Fertility problems transcend the boundaries of medicine and challenge our traditional positivistic understanding of health and illness and the authority of scientific and objective medicine. The circumstances for coping with infertility are not universal and depend instead on the given society and cultural values. Studying infertility means studying every important institution of our society: the institutions of marriage and the family, the institution of parenthood, medicine etc. While American and English social scientists have studied social aspects of infertility for many years, in the Czech Republic the topic remains the domain of medicine. This article focuses on basic concepts employed in the study of infertility and involuntary childlessness in sociology. It presents and summarises relevant concepts such as stigmatisation, social exclusion, identity problems, and gender differences in the response to infertility. It presents the debate over explaining the terms of infertility and (involuntary and voluntary) childlessness. It shows how the position of involuntary childlessness has been changing as the problem has increasingly come to be dealt with in medical terms and as high-tech medical treatments for infertility have been developed. Finally, the article opens up the topic for debate and raises the question of potential methods of research. |
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