Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #109660

Kate Coffey, MSEd, Department of Applied Health Science, Indiana University, HPER 116, Bloomington, IN 47405, 812-855-3627, kcoffey@indiana.edu

Most women in the United States become mothers at some point in their lives, but there is a small group of women who choose to remain childfree. This choice not only goes against the norm of society, but can bring with it personal and social stigma. The problem of the study is to compare selected differences between heterosexual, bisexual and lesbian women who choose to remain childfree. Specific differences in stereotype perception of childfree status, dyadic relationship satisfaction, and life satisfaction are used to determine the variations in heterosexual, bisexual and lesbian women. A nonrandom sample of 591 childfree women completed this nationwide, online survey. Recruitment came from advertisements of the survey and its web link on childfree, bisexual and lesbian related websites. A quantitative, non-experimental descriptive design assessed the differences in those factors among the three groups of women using previously developed instruments. The questionnaire was made available online for one month, which gave sufficient time for equivalent representation from members of each subgroup (at least 65 of each sexual orientation group). One way ANOVAs and chi square tests were used to differentiate sexual orientation and those selected factors. Demographic information and analyses are described for the reader. The most numerous significant differences were found between heterosexual and bisexual childfree women.

Learning Objectives: